Category Archives: Spinach

You say frittata, I say frittata

Posted on by
3

I haven’t posted any of the dishes lately, but I have still been trying to cook at least one ‘proper’ lunch every weekend. No grand three course meals here, but just simple bruschetta, quiche, fancy toasties and what not.

This week I made these little spring vegetable frittata (or is that frittatas?). It’s a simple recipe – although I don’t have a fancy pan that can work on the stove top and in the oven, so I’ll admit I did end up with more dishes than I’d like on a Saturday afternoon.

It was worth it.

You could use almost any vegetables you like in this. I’d suggest keeping the potato, or even swapping it for kumara. A starchy vege anchors a frittata. Then you can really add what you like – I think courgette and asparagus are nice in spring, but let your tastes, budget, fridge contents and energy levels guide you!

Easy Spring Frittata
Serves 2

1 small-medium potato, scrubbed and chopped into small cubes
½ onion, finely chopped
½ capsicum, diced
½ a courgette, coarsely grated
4-5 spears asparagus, woody ends removed, chopped into 3-4cm lengths
handful spinach leaves, roughly shredded
3 eggs (or I used 2 eggs plus 1 white) , lightly beaten
small handful grated cheese
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat your grill to about 200°(c). Heat a small frypan over medium heat. Cook the potato first – you have a couple of options here. You can cook it in the frypan until tender, and then add the other vegetables. Or, I was impatient, so just zapped the potato in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and then plonked it into the heated pan along with the onion, capsicum, courgette and asparagus. I found I didn’t actually need any oil; the moisture from the courgette created a bit of steam and that was enough to get the party started.

Cook for just 3-4 minutes, until the asparagus is tender. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add the shredded spinach and stir for another minute or two, until it wilts. Then pour the lightly beaten eggs over. As I said, I don’t have a multi-function frypan, so I just kind of stirred the mixture around in the hot pan to start the eggs cooking, and then split the mixture into two ovenproof dishes. If you can leave yours in the frypan, cook it kind of like an omelette, tilting the pan to let the uncooked egg to run underneath, until the base is golden. Sprinkle your frypan or little dishes with grated cheese, and place in the oven. Grill until the frittata is golden and just set firm. You can serve hot or cold – it’s yummy with a bit of relish.

Catalan Tomato Bread and Catalan Spinach

Posted on by
5

These are two recipes from my Spanish tapas and paella dinner a couple of weeks ago. These rounded out the ‘something green’ and ‘something carby’ requirements of my menu.  They also ticked an extra box, ‘something Catalan’.

 I mainly came across Catalonia in my linguistics studies. It’s a politically and culturally autonomous part of Spain, and includes Barcelona. The Catalan language has had a somewhat troubled past but seems to be getting a boost from the Government these days – public education is in Catalan, and businesses have to use Catalan as well as Spanish in menus, and posters etc, or they can face fines. Catalan public television broadcasts only in Catalan. It’s also the only official language in Andorra, a tiny little country nestled between Spain and France (thanks, Wikipedia!).

So, back to the dishes. I found this Ray McVinnie recipe for Catalan Tomato Bread – not a recipe for the bread itself, but instructions on rubbing tomatoes on lightly toasted bread, so the bread gets covered in tomato juice and seeds and little bits of flesh. Sure, I thought. That looks nice. But we need more tomatoes. So I made semi-dried tomato bread. The recipe comes from Simon & Alison Holst’s New Zealand Bread Book, which I bought when we got our breadmaker. I really like the book actually, it’s got every kind of bread I can think of, and all their recipes have breadmaker and by hand instructions. So you can make your bread entirely by hand, or get the breadmaker to do the donkey work on the dough before you shape the bread yourself and bake it in the oven, or the breadmaker can do the whole dang thing.

When I’m feeling authentic and virtuous I make the bread all by hand. But that doesn’t happen very often. And it certainly didn’t happen on this day. So Panasonic came to the rescue.

As for the Catalan Spinach, it’s really just steamed spinach with toasted pine nuts and raisins. It doesn’t sound that incredible but it’s funny how such a simple addition can really lift plain spinach and turn it into something special. It was goooooooooood! And healthy. Bonus. 10 Points.

Home Made Catalan Tomato Bread

 Semi-Dried Tomato Bread – from Simon & Alison Holst’s New Zealand Bread Book

3 tsp surebake yeast
1 cup warm water
¼ cup tomato paste
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup wholemeal flour
2 cups high grade flour
¼ cup chopped semi- or sun-dried tomatoes
1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (optional)

By machine: Measure all the ingredients into your bread machine in the order the manual tells you to. Set to NORMAL cycle, and choose your crust etc, and hit START. Or, you can set it to dough and shape the dough yourself, then bake it (as in the by hand instructions). I have a Panasonic breadmaker and set it to LARGE loaf.

By hand: Measure the yeast, water, tomato paste, sugar, salt, oil and wholemeal flour into a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place. Stir in the high grade flour, tomatoes (and the basil if you’re using it). Make a soft dough just firm enough to knead. Knead for 10 minutes, until the dough forms a soft ball that springs back when gently pressed. Turn the dough in 2-3 teaspoons of oil in a clean, dry bowl. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for half an hour.

Lightly knead the oiled dough for 1 minute. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, then pat it into a cylinder that will fit in your loaf or bread pan (or shape it round and bake it in a cake pan). Place it into the greased loaf pan and leave it to rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size. Brush with milk (if you like) and bake at 200°C for about 30 minutes.

 To make it into Catalan Tomato Bread – a Ray McVinnie recipe from Cuisine

1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
1 very ripe tomato (a vine-ripened one if you can), cut in half
extra olive oil and salt, to serve

Slice the bread into 15mm slices and lightly toast. Rub each toast slice with the cut clove of garlic, and then with a tomato half, so that you leave plenty of tomato juice and seeds on the bread. Drizzle with olive oil and serve sprinkled with salt.

Catalan Spinach – from this recipe I found randomly

1 Tbsp olive or avocado oil
1 Tbsp pine nuts
2 Tbsp raisins
1 bunch spinach, washed and stems trimmed
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and add the pine nuts. Watch them carefully; it’s a fine line between aromatic and burnt. As soon as they smell lovely, add the raisins, and let them plump for 1 minute. Add the spinach. Toss for a minute while the spinach wilts. Splash in the balsamic vinegar and toss for another 30 seconds. Season to taste and serve straight away.

Spinach & Silverbeet for Lunch

Posted on by
2

I’m trying to get into the habit of cooking one vaguely ‘proper’ meal for lunch over a weekend, so we sit down to eat together. Nothing fancy - soup, pie, quesadillas, bruschetta, that sort of thing. A little more effort than toast and vegemite.

It’s nice to have a hot lunch over winter, it’s nice to have an extra meal together, and it is an excellent way for me to find new uses for whatever veges are still left at the end of the weekend.

This week, it was time for a … pie? quiche? flan? tart? I can’t decide! I don’t really know the difference between them, so that means I get to choose, right? Quiche, I think. I’m in a French sort of mood today.

The spinach and feta combination is nothing new. You may remember it from, um, almost every cafe in the late 90s. But I’m a big believer in not fixing what ain’t broke. Oldies are often goodies. This time I added silverbeet, which usually works well where spinach works well. Plus, to make it a bit healthier, I pulled back on the cream and feta and added cottage cheese, which is still nice and creamy, but not so fatty and salty. Enjoy!

Silverbeet & Spinach Quiche

olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 bunch spinach, washed
4-5 silverbeet leaves, washed and white stems trimmed off
2 tsp mustard
2 eggs, lightly beaten
80g feta, roughly chopped or crumbled
150g light cottage cheese
1/4 cup light evaporated milk (or trim milk will work too)
2 Tbsp parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
4-5 sheets filo pastry
olive oil spray

Preheat oven to 180 (c). Heat a small dash of olive oil in a fry pan, and gently cook onion for 5 minutes or so until softened. Put the onion in a large bowl and set aside. Put the silverbeet and spinach in the fry pan, and add a splash of water. Steam until they wilt. Drain, cool, and squeeze out excess liquid. Roughly chop it up and place in the bowl with the onion.

Add the mustard, eggs, feta, cottage cheese, milk and parmesan, and mix well. I had run out, but if you have pinenuts, chuck a handful of those in too. Season to taste – for me, the feta is salty enough, but freshly ground pepper is welcome. Set aside for a moment.

Lightly spray a loose-bottomed quiche or tart pan with cooking spray. Place one sheet of filo pastry down to line the dish, spray again and add another sheet, repeating until the sheets are stacked up, overlapping, so that the pan is lined. Spread with the pie filling mixture, and scrunch the edges of the filo shell around to make a funky crust.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the filling is set. Serves 4 for lunch if you make a salad to go with it. Bon appetit!