Emma’s Spinach (with 1000 Lemons for Jordan) Soup

Emma’s Spinach (with 1000 Lemons for Jordan) Soup

The wonderful Emma Mileva is the wife of my colleague (the also wonderful) Jordan Milev, Creative Director at Skunkworks Creative Group Inc.  Not only is Emma in the middle of finishing her Ph.D in Linguistics at SFU, she is constantly sending Jordan to work with delicious and incredibly healthy homemade lunches – we are all jealous.  Jordan is generally pretty good about sharing with the noted exception of this spinach soup he sometimes brings. In that case, picture head down, elbows up with no room for extraneous spoons. There was nothing for it but to ask Emma for the recipe so the rest of us could try it.  Here it is.

You will need:
500 g spinach (washed and spun)
1 big yellow onion
1 c. white rice (arborio or sushi rice) – both are gluten free
2-3 Tpsps olive oil
yogurt
fresh lemon juice
salt and black pepper

Cooking instructions…from Emma with ad libs from me:

  1. With lots of tears Emma peels the onion, puts it in a chopper and then sautes the onion puree in a pan with olive oil for about 5 minutes on a medium heat.
  2. Add the rice plus 3 cups of  boiling water. (Emma boils the water in a kettle to save time – me too!).
  3. Add salt and pepper.
  4. When the rice is almost done (takes about 15-20 minutes in a covered pot) add the chopped spinach. You may wish to add more water. I added 6 more cups of boiling water because I over measured the rice – never underestimate the swell factor! Leave it for 5 more minutes on a low heat. Emma does not leave it for a longer time because she likes the spinach to look fresh dark green and not to be overdone.
  5. Marni’s Variation: As usual I started cooking before I checked the fridge for ingredients. I knew I had a bag of spinach but it was only a 170g bag (arg). However, I also had  bunch of kale so I used that (washed with centre stalk removed and chopped – some people leave the centre stalk but I find it a bit tough so I took it out)

Voila!  Serve it with lemon juice and/or yogurt and season with salt and pepper to your taste. I used half a lemon and a dollop of greek yogurt. The taste is light and reminiscent of Greek Avgolemono soup but without the egg so the Vegan crowd can still chow down.

Emma saysJordan specifically eats it with 1000s of lemons and 1000 kg of yogurt (I can vouche for the lemons…I have never seen Jordan eat anything that did not involve at least 1 lemon!).

Thank you Emma and thanks Jordan for teaching me how to say “We don’t allow dummies here” in Bulgarian.



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