After skipping a few weeks, I'm back with another of my usual recipes, which is spinach pottage. It's not only very popular and well liked in my family but also very healthy. It has a lot of health benefits like can reduce oxidative stress and blood pressure levels, plus can benefit eye health.

Most of the carbs in spinach consist of fiber, which is incredibly healthy.
Spinach is high in insoluble fiber, which may boost your health in several ways.
It adds bulk to stool as food passes through your digestive system. This may help prevent constipation. source

It is full of vitamins and minerals as well, exactly what we need after a long winter in which nutrition is not exactly ideal.

Buy Fresh Or Grow Your Own

Some are fortunate to have a garden where they can grow fresh, organic spinach. That is the real deal as you know what you are eating and you can have fresh spinach when you want. We have a garden but have never grown spinach. Don't ask me why as I don't know the answer for that. The truth is, if you want to do it right, you need conditions, just like with other leaf like vegetables, you need to use foil to protect them from dirt. This is not a problem as we're already using foil for tomatoes, pepper and honeydew but I guess the soil is not suitable for that. That is a very important factor that needs to be taken into consideration as the whole crop can depend on that.

You can buy frozen spinach that is easy to use as it's ready they say but that is far from what you can make yourself buying fresh ones, as far as quality is concerned. I had that and can't compare the two.

So my solution is buying at the farmers market from trusted sources where I can get excellent quality for a good price. Last week I got 3.5kg at a very good prize. It's too much to eat it at once but I needed that o put some in the freezer as it doesn't last long, so I need to put some in the freezer.

Vegan Spinach Pottage

This is a recipe I learned from my mother. Basically it's a family recipe, a good one and there's no reason to change it.

Ingredients

• 1kg fresh spinach,
• 3 cloves garlic,
• 1 - 2 tbsp olive oil,
• 3 - 4 tbsp flour (I used spelt),
• 600ml plant based milk,
• 1 tsp salt.

The Process

Clean spinach and cook for 10 - 15 minutes. Make sure you don't overcook it as you can destroy all the good nutritional elements in it. Drain and cut gently with a wooden knife or a plastic spatula. I don't use metal as it can oxidize.

Add oil to the pen and heat gently, don't let it burn.

Add the spinach.

Add the crushed garlic.

Mix the milk and flour and add to the spinach.

Cook for 15, max 20 minutes. Serve with toast, that is bran bread what you see. If you prefer, you can add fried tofu to make it more interesting.

It's easy to make and ready in a very short time. It's tasty, healthy, no reason not to have it. Instead of taking vitamins and supplements, I prefer to have a healthy diet.

There's also the spinach soup that I need to try once and salad. These are on my bucket list, maybe I'll be back with these recipes.

Till then, eat spinach as it's the best!

This is my entry to the #fruitsandveggiesmonday created my dear friend Lena, aka @lenasveganliving and hosted in collaboration with the amazing Katie, aka @plantstoplanks. Also a big thank you to my other dear friend Barbara, aka @barbara-orenya, who's creating these awesome wonkies that are used in the contest.