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I’ve been consistently meal planning and cooking for about 12 years now, but only recently have I begun to come up with recipes based on what I have at hand. Food waste is a punch to the gut; herbs and tender greens are the most common victims, often found as a soggy mess in a plastic bag squashed at the bottom of the vegetable drawer. The other night I made chimichurri in order to use up some wilting dill, which tasted amazing and assuaged some of my guilt. After also noticing a tub of baby spinach in the back of the fridge whose lifespan was at most two more days, I decided to spruce it up with some of the ingredients I had used for a delicious (planned) salad earlier in the week. It was so good I could have eaten the entire thing by myself, and greedily gobbled up Phoebe’s portion when she inevitably left it on her plate (because to a toddler, green is the color of the devil).

I’ve noticed that spinach is often the less-than-welcome gateway salad green for a lot of people. Topped with carrot shreds, unripe cherry tomatoes, and an overly complex store-bought dressing, it can be incredibly lackluster. With the proper accompaniment, however, spinach shines as the truly fantastic salad green that it is. It’s hearty, tender, and (bonus) super healthy; spruced up with bacon-y, toasty pine nuts, sweet date chunks, and salty parm shreds, you will want to eat this every single night in Fall and Winter.

Another bonus: this recipe can be easily scaled up or even down. If you only have a couple handfuls of spinach that you need to use up, just halve the additions and dressing (or make the full dressing amount and save half for the next night).

Note: if you’re like us and have a permanent, neglected jar of bacon fat next to the stove, this is the perfect opportunity to dip a spoon into it. If you don’t have any (and good on you!), feel free to use butter or olive oil instead.

Spinach with Dates & Pine Nuts

Serves 4

3 tbsp raw pine nuts
1 tbsp bacon fat (or butter or olive oil)

4 large handfuls of baby spinach or a mix of baby salad greens, cleaned and dried
5 Medjool dates, pitted
parmesan, for shaving

½ a small shallot, minced
1 tsp sherry vinegar
juice of ½ a lemon
¼ tsp fine sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper
olive oil

Heat a small pan over medium heat. Melt the bacon fat (or butter or oil) and, once it’s hot, stir in 3 tbsp pine nuts. Stir often—watching carefully, as they can burn quickly—until the nuts are golden brown on at least one side and smell toasty. Scape the pine nuts and leftover fat into a bowl and leave to cool.

Put the baby spinach (or other salad greens) into a large salad bowl. Cut each date into four segments, vertically, then chop into ½ inch chunks. Sprinkle the dates evenly across the spinach. Using a vegetable peeler, shave off thin slices of parmesan directly onto the salad. (I don’t have an exact amount by weight or volume—use your judgement, and just remember that it’s hard to put too much parmesan on a salad.) Crumble up the parmesan slices with your fingers so you have irregular shards all over. Top with the reserved pine nuts and bacon fat.

Combine the minced shallot, 1 tsp sherry vinegar, juice of ½ a lemon, ¼ tsp fine sea salt, a few cracks of black pepper, and twice the amount of olive oil to lemon/vinegar mixture in a small jar. Top with a lid and shake to emulsify, then pour over the salad and toss until everything is mingling nicely. Serve straight away, as spinach wilts quickly. Enjoy!