The advantage of having your own vegetable garden is that you have a ready supply of fresh vegetables that you know are free from chemicals.  The downside is sometimes you have a glut of something.  This summer it was spinach, I didn’t expect it to seed so well, or grow well with all the rain.  Fortunately I also have lots of friends who I like to cook for and so a glut turns into lunch.

I also helps that I love having people over for lunch at the weekend, so I needed to find something to use up lots of spinach as well as being filling and delicious.  A quick search and I found this fabulous bake courtesy of BBC Food.

Sweet Potato & Spinach Bake

• 300ml single cream (or double if you feel indulgent – I always do)
• 1 garlic glove, peeled
• 2 sprigs thyme (or rosemary)
• 250g bag frozen spinach
• freshly grated nutmeg
• butter
• 850g sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (about 3mm think) – I used my mandolin
• 25g grated hard cheese (Parmesan or veggie equiv.)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the cream, garlic and herb sprigs into a small saucepan and slowly bring to just below boiling. Turn off the heat, season and leave to infuse.
2. Put the spinach into a colander, pour over a kettle of boiling water and leave to drain for a few mins. Then squeeze out as much water as possible. Season with salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.
3. Grease an ovenproof dish generously with butter and spread half the sweet potato slices across the bottom. Top with a layer of spinach, then the remaining potato. Pour over the cream mixture, through a sieve to remove the garlic and herbs, then sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 45-55 mins until golden and tender.

That’s it, easy-peasy.  I probably used more fresh spinach and just wilted it with almost boiling water from the kettle, and a couple of garlic cloves rather than just one.  I also used thyme – although the original recipe says you can use rosemary, it didn’t appeal to me.  I just served this with a huge bowl of salad (mixed leaves, halved baby plum tomatoes, sliced cucumber, sliced red and yellow peppers and finely sliced half-moons of red onion) and lots of fresh crusty bread with butter.

This is a delicious vegetarian lunch dish.  You could use it as a side dish (like dauphinoise potatoes), but why complicate things?  It should feed 4 people easily and perhaps 6 as a side.  I made a dish and a half for 6 as a main.  Oh and I apologise for pinching the photo…..I made this long before I started taking photos of everything I eat.