Advent Blogging Day Seven...Parmesan Creamed Spinach

Kevin and I used to love to go to a restaurant in Newport Beach called, Gulliver's. It looked like an old 18th century English tavern, with wenches as servers and amazing prime rib. The prime rib was always served with creamed corn, Yorkshire pudding, creamed horseradish, and the absolute best creamed spinach I've ever eaten.
Last night, for some reason, I was thinking about that delicious creamed spinach as I was planning dinner, so I decided to whip up a batch.
I didn't use a recipe, I just improvised.

First, I finely diced 1/2 of an onion and 2 garlic cloves. I sauteed them in 2 tablespoons of butter for about 5 minutes over medium heat, then added 2 tablespoons of flour. I blended the flour in well and cooked the mixture for a couple of minutes. I added about 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and a couple of grinds of pepper.

In the meantime, I defrosted a 16 ounce bag of Trader Joe's Chopped Spinach in the microwave.
When the spinach was mostly defrosted, I dumped it into the pan of onion-butter-flour. I mixed it together well. The moisture in the spinach helped to thicken the sauce.

I added some half and half, stirring until well incorporated...probably about 1/2 cup.

Here's the real secret to cooking spinach perfectly- add a few dashes of grated nutmeg. It really adds something wonderful to the spinach!

I added a little more half and half when the mixture began to get really thick. When it was incorporated into the spinach I added about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese and gave it a good stir.

I sprayed a casserole dish with non-stick spray, and poured the mixture into the casserole dish.

I topped it with some homemade bread crumbs and popped it into the pre-heated oven at 350 degrees.

20 minutes later, it was done perfectly!

I can't tell you how incredibly delicious this was! We had about 1 cup of the creamed spinach left over, so I reheated it this morning and used it as a tasty sauce over sunny side up eggs on toast. Still yummy!

We needed a nice and warm breakfast after getting 8" of snow overnight!