TLC Cooking "Nutrition 101: Get Your Potassium From This Spinach Pasta"

Spinach and Pasta

Difficulty Level Easy

I'm always talking about cooking healthy, nutritional foods in your own home, but what does that really mean? March is Nutrition Month and I'll be posting on 10 essential nutrients, what they do for your body and how to get them. There will be a recipe every day highlighting each nutrient.

Potassium maintains fluid balance and nerve function in the body and promotes muscle function. It is believed that potassium may help treat and prevent high blood pressure and lower the risk of stroke.

What to eat to get potassium: milk, yogurt, apricots, bananas, cantaloupe, nectarines, oranges, prunes, raisins, spinach, swiss chard, tomato juice, artichokes, baked potato with the skin, legumes and nuts.

The first time I ever heard of potassium was when I was a kid. My best friend's mother had high blood pressure and she always kept bananas in the house to help regulate her condition. No one else was allowed to have any, which struck me as so odd, that I've never forgotten it. You can get potassium from so many sources, you really don't need to hoard all the bananas.

Here is a tasty recipe for a pasta sauce that is ready in the time it takes to make the pasta, so it's great for a mid-week dinner. It doesn't call for Parmesan cheese on top, but if think the saltiness of the cheese would be a nice foil for the rich sweetness from the balsamic vinegar and the raisins, or maybe even some black olives would do the trick.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound	short pasta, cooked al dente and drained
1 tablespoons	extra virgin olive oil
1 clove	garlic, minced
2 pound	baby spinach leaves, cleaned
1 tablespoons	balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons	golden raisins, divided in two
6 tablespoons	toasted pine nuts, divided in two
2 tablespoons	extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION:

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add garlic and spinach and cook just until spinach begins to wilt. Remove from heat and transfer spinach to a food processor.
Add vinegar, half of the raisins, half of the pine nuts and pulse to make a spinach sauce, adding olive oil to achieve desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Add sauce to cooked pasta in the same pot and cook for 1 minute for flavors to meld, and then toss with remaining raisins and pine nuts to serve.
From the website Cooking with Michele

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