spinach and mascarpone-dinner ideas please

hotcookie101

Can anyone give me some inspiration for dinner that involves baby leaf spinach and mascarpone... I also have parboiled spuds and cooked rice, but methinks it sounds more like a pasta dish? So ideas for other uses for rice and spuds would be good (rice been there since saturday-cooled quickly will it still be ok or should I just freeze it? Can have meat in it-just an drawing a blank at the moment!
Please help

kezzae

Hi,
Have you got any ham and small tomatoes?
I do a Spinach and Ham Pasta Bake using mascapone, I use gnocchi but you can use any pasta.

Boil the pasta and drain, then put into a greased baking dish.
Chop the ham into strips and halve the tomatoes, chuck them in with the pasta in the oven dish, also add the mascpone and spinach leaves and mix up, add black pepper to season and sprinkle the top with parmesan.
Put under the grill for 5 mins to melt and brown the parmesan.

PrincessPeach_2

Or Pizza? if you have the tomatoes and dough - perhaps some herbs on top and and egg (See Pizza express for their Spinach and egg pizza - it tastes better then it sounds )

hotcookie101

mm yummy ideas. Do you think the ham bake would work with sliced potatoes? mix spinach and mascarpone and some ham or pancetta, pour over sliced parboiled spuds, some more cheese on top (have cheddar or parmesan) and bake? I dont usually use much mascarpone-I bought it to make a tart with butternut squash but then we made curry instead:rolleyes:

CCP

Spinach and soft cheese makes a really nice veggie lasagne: I wilt the spinach in a pan with a bit of garlic and some nutmeg (not essential, but nutmeg's really good with spinach), mix with the soft cheese, then layer up with lasagne sheets and a nice thick tomato sauce (from a tin of tomatoes). Top with a bit more of the soft cheese and some grated parmesan, and bake in the oven until cooked and bubbly.

Hmmm... I might do that next week actually!

I'd probably turn the rice into fried rice for lunch - great for using up any other odds and ends in the fridge, too!

CCP

Sorry - took a while writing that and you got there first!

I think doing the pasta bake with potatoes sounds pretty good: I'd imagine it would go a bit thick and stodgy, and very comforting.

Blast - I'm feeling hungry now and I only had breakfast a couple of hours ago!

LadyC

Veggie lasagne is good, you don't even need to wilt the spinach first, but you would need a tin of tomatoes. Make a basic tomato sauce, add onion/garlic/red pepper if you have one, or just reduce the tomatoes themselves.

Put 1/3 - 1/2 the tomato sauce in an oven dish, spread mascarpone on each sheet of lasagne (as if buttering bread), lay dry side down on tomatoes, layer spinach over to cover the mascarpone'd side then repeat the layers. Finish with a layer of pasta with mascarpone on top (and sprinkle over some cheddar/parmesan if you have it). Can add a sprinkling of nutmeg to the mascarpone before spreading on the lasagne sheets. This is a very sparse version of Delia's 4 cheese lasagne.

MrsBartolozzi

You could make a pasta type sauce with the mascarpone and spinach and serve with gnocchi made from the potatoes instead of pasta.

CCP

LadyC wrote: »

Veggie lasagne is good, you don't even need to wilt the spinach first....

That's clever - a much easier way of doing things. I think I'll try it your way next time: just in the spirit of experimentation, you understand!

hotcookie101

Thanks everyone for all the ideas, what I have ended up doing is frying some pancetta and sliced onion (actually done in remoska but like frying really ) then adding the washed spinach and wilting it down. Then I added tub of mascarpone (was 30% less fat one, must have picked up by mistake but looking at it didn't seem to have loads of stabilisers added) and some pepper. I then layered this with sliced cooked spuds, and mozzarella (had a tub of buffalo that had gone OOD so best use up before OH sees it:o)
Will grate some parmesan over it tomorrow before baking for 20-30mins until crispy. Am hoping it tastes good, cos I like the sound of it, a sort of spinachy potatoey gratin
It was made today as am working late tomorrow so its great to have something to just shove in oven and not have to worry about it
I will keep you informed on how it turns out :cool:

CCP

That sounds really tasty, hotcookie - can I come to yours for dinner, please?