Garlicky creamed spinach

I know it's hard to get excited about creamed spinach, but this creamed spinach is loaded with garlic, and has an ideal thick and creamy texture. My SO and I included this dish in our celebratory end-of-the-semester dinner, so it's this week's end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

White sauce:
4 tablespoons butter
5 large cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed with a garlic press
4 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, warmed

Other ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup water
1 pound frozen, chopped spinach
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream

To make this creamed spinach you cook up a white sauce in one pot, some spinach and onions in another pot, and then combine the two at the end. Making the white sauce and cooking the spinach can easily be done in parallel, and all told this recipe takes less than half an hour to make.

To make the white sauce:
1. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a small non-stick pot over medium-high heat.
2. Add the garlic, and cook, stirring, until the garlic begins to brown (~1 minute, though it depends on your stove's heat and the size of the garlic bits).
3. Reduce the heat to medium, add the flour and salt, and, stirring constantly, cook until the flour begins to brown and starts to smell nutty/toasty (we don't time this process, but probably around 3 minutes).
4. Reduce the heat to medium low, and add the warmed milk to the flour mixture in two or three batches, whisking constantly until smooth. Do not add the milk all at once. When you're done, the sauce will be very thick.

To cook the spinach and onions:
1. If you desire, defrost the spinach; we do this by putting the spinach in a large bowl, adding a few tablespoons of water, and then microwaving it until it's no longer icy (but still not cooked).
2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large non-stick pot over medium-high heat.
3. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions turn clear and start to brown (at least 5 minutes, though again it will vary).
4. Add the spinach, water, and 1 teaspoon of salt, and cook, covered and stirring occasionally, until the spinach is done. If you've defrosted the spinach, this will be about 5 minutes; if you're using frozen spinach, this will take longer.

Assembling the dish:
1. Add the white sauce and sour cream to the cooked spinach, and stir to mix thoroughly.

If you don't really like garlic, I might suggest reducing the amount of garlic a bit. The recipe can be made quite successfully without garlic, but then it wouldn't be "garlicky creamed spinach," now would it?

We based this recipe on a creamed spinach recipe we found online years ago (I believe it was trying to mimic Boston Market's creamed spinach), but we have long since lost the link.

[Updated Nov. 23, 2005 to reduce the amount of time required to cook the garlic.]