Spinach Pie
One of the reasons we like a local Greek restaurant (besides the food) is that they have a trellis-covered outdoor patio with grapevines winding around, and it is shaded by a large, leafy oak (?) tree. And we can bring the dog. Mostly, we like the patio because we can bring the dog.
So on a recent Sunday evening, Tim, Rose and myself (and the dog) decided to have a nice, quiet dinner there and enjoy being one with nature.
Nature, however, had other ideas. It tried to kill us. Seriously. We barely made it out alive.
No sooner had we gotten our appetizers than the bombardment began. At first, it was the occasional ping of something hitting the table. We looked skyward, trying to figure out what it was. Grapes? Seemed unlikely. Unless they were somehow growing grapes that could only be pressed by The Hulk.
Was there maybe a flock of enraged birds using us for target practice? Should we be worried that even as we stuffed ourselves with hummus and eggplant an aggressive band of marauding sparrows was planning to attack our left flank(s)? Where was a phone booth when you needed one?!?!
As the bombardment picked up in intensity and improved in aim, we finally realized that we had nothing to fear from the innocent blue jays, perched in the tree branches who were more interested in some juicy worms than in pecking us to death. What we had to fear was the tree itself.
As it turned out, the tree was a cross between the whomping willow that had it out for Harry Potter and the nasty old apple tree that smacked Dorothy around. And we had somehow really ticked it off.
Poor Chloe took a direct hit to the head, Rose got some acorn shrapnel in the arm, and I suffered collateral damage after a particularly vicious acorn pitch bounced off the edge of my plate and smacked me in the face.
Oh, the carnage! Nowhere on that patio was safe from that rampaging tree. By the time dinner was over, we had spent more time picking acorns out of our green beans, drinking acorn flavored water, and ducking for cover every few minutes to avoid the barrage of incoming missiles being fired at us from the killer tree than we had actually eating.
We finally conceded the battle, and headed for the safety of our cars. I did, however, strongly encourage Chloe to go potty on the base of the tree as we left. Hehehehehehe.
Ingredients:
- 1 large container of baby spinach ( 16 oz. container)
- 1 ( 5 oz.) container of baby kale
- 1 1/2 cups diced onion
- 1 1/2 cups sliced leeks
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of my cashew cheese
- whole wheat vegan phyllo dough
- oil or melted butter for brushing the phyllo dough
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- In a large saucepan, saute both of the onions in a small amount of olive oil and the 1 tsp. salt over medium low heat till soft and translucent. Add the spinach and kale, a handful at a time, and cook it down until most of the moisture is out of the pan. I use tongs for this, to really move stuff around. Put in a colander to drain it. Let it cool a bit before the next step.
- Squeeze out any additional moisture (I buy boxes of medical gloves from the drugstore and just use my hands to squeeze. Make sure you do it over a colander, or you will find half your onions getting squeezed out as well)
- Put the mixture back into the pan and add the nutmeg and cashew cheese. If the cheese is from the refrigerator because you made it ahead of time, you might want to take it out and let it come to room temperature so that it mixes in with the spinach/kale mixture more easily. At this point, I still have the gloves on, so I just get in there with my hands and work it like a bread dough to incorporate everything.
- To make the pie, use the thawed (follow directions on package) phyllo dough and a pie dish. Remove the dough from the package and place it between two very damp towels to keep it from drying out.
- Take one sheet of the dough and drape it over the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Immediately brush it with olive oil or melted “butter” gently pushing the dough to conform to the shape of the plate. Don’t worry about brushing the stuff hanging over, just do the bit touching the rim. It is okay if the dough tears a small bit as you will repeat this process two more times for a total of three sheets of dough. Make sure you keep the stack of dough covered with the towel in between doing the layers because it will dry out faster than you can believe.)
- put the spinach mixture into the bottom crust you have created and pat down to fill the dish.
- Take one more sheet of the dough and place it on top of your spinach with the short end touching one side of the plate, but not draping over. You are using approximately half of the sheet. Brush with oil and then fold the other half over the bottom half and brush with oil. Repeat this process one more time, but if you ran the first sheet side to side, do the second sheet top to bottom. Brush the top with oil, then cut 3 or 4 shallow slits in the top.
- Rip away any of the dough that is hanging over the edges, leaving just enough to roll over to seal the pie.
- Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes or so before cutting.
Enjoy!
** if you are comfortable working with phyllo dough and want to up the degree of difficulty, layer 3 sheets of the dough on top of one another, brushing each one and cut lengthwise into 2, 3 or 4 strips. Put a portion of the spinach mixture about an inch for one end and then fold the dough into a triangle shape like you would fold a flag to make individual pies.
Cashew Cheese:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup raw cashews soaked in enough water to cover them for 2 hours.
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 3 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 small cloves garlic
- 1 Tablespoon pine nuts
Directions:
- Add all ingredients to a high speed blender and blend till smooth and creamy. You can add a bit more oil or just plain water to get a smoother consistency, but do it a teaspoon at a time as you don’t want to make the mixture runny or it will make the phyllo crust soggy. Can be made a day ahead.
Enjoy!
