Creamed spinach

I've never actually had creamed spinach before, but Ed wanted to make some, after seeing an Iron Chef episode where they made creamed spinach with gruyere. I think it was battle gruyere, because he was talking about cheese a lot. This was another Monday-night bribe, as I came home from coaching to various projects all over the kitchen. The plan was for the creamed spinach to be the base of the dish, with a poached egg on top, and then a little gruyere cracker thing on top (that's where you can tell it was from Iron Chef - what normal person makes cheesy tuile things?).

Unfortunately, he put me in charge of the gruyere tuiles, after telling me to turn the oven to broil, and I forgot about them. Then I smelled burning, opened the oven door, and was greeted by flames. Oops. So, no gruyere tuiles.

The creamed spinach, however, was delicious, with or without its fancy bits. Being an Ed-recipe, quantities are approximate, but, this was delicious.

Creamed spinach
Made enough for two large bowls, big sides

1 bunch of fresh spinach, rinsed and dried
4 pieces bacon (Ed used black forest)
1 clump oyster mushroom
~2-4tbs heavy cream
~1/4-1/2C grated gruyere cheese

Chop up the bacon and mushroom into very small pieces, and cook it until the bacon has rendered out all its fat and the mushrooms are cooked.

Blanch the spinach for about a minute, then pull it out and chop it up as finely as you can. Add it back to the mushrooms and bacon in the pan. Mix it around. Add some cream. Stir things around. Our spinach was still pretty green, not that creamy. Add in the cheese. Stir around some more, until the cheese melts. Add more cream if you feel you need that. Put the whole mess in a blender, and blend for a bit, until it looks more like gloop.

Serve. You can sprinkle cheese on top for more deliciousness. Ed served this with a poached egg on top, and while that was tasty, the spinach on its own was delicious. This is crazy, because I never thought I liked creamed spinach, but I don't think I've ever had it before, either. Just goes to show, you can't know you won't like something until you try it...