New recipe--Tangerine Spinach

Do you buy the giant boxes of tangerines, or clementines, or mandarin oranges that come out in the winter? They are the new little ones that are really easy to peel and usually don't have any seeds. They are yummy, but I probably didn't need 6 lbs of them.

So looking at my fruit bowl that had been completely overtaken with these cute little "I want to be an orange when I grow up" creatures, I decided to use one in my dinner.

So here's the recipe I came up with:

Tangerine Spinach

Any citrus that is vaguely related the tangerine would work in this recipe. The quantities below served two adults, one who really likes veggies (me) and one who is admittedly ambivalent to them (my S.O.).

The S.O. did say he really liked it. The tangerines made the spinach suddenly special or fancy. The flavors went together really well, and it is very pretty to serve. This would make a great side with any asian dish like teriyaki tofu over rice, but it isn't too asian-ee in flavor. It would go well with bbq'd skewer, or any meal really that needs a quick green side to round it out.

1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 tangerine peeled and separated into it's little natural sections
1 bag of baby spinach (sold with the bagged salads)
2 Tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds

Put the oils in a medium frying pan over medium/low heat and saute the tangerine sections for 3 or 4 minutes, a couple minutes on each side. Dump in the bag of spinach in the pan. The spinach will slowly wilt down. I used tongs to grab the mass of spinach and rotate it top to bottom a few times until everything was evenly wilted. While you are tossing it, be rough with the tangerine sections, fork them, or tong them, so some of their juices mix in with the rest of the spinach. Sprinkle generously with the sesame seeds and serve immediately--this does hold up well in the oven on very low if the rest of your dinner isn't quite ready.

Sliced almonds would work instead of sesame seeds too.