Community Supported Spinach Cake
Our weekly CSA share kicked in yesterday and we received a ton of fresh organic produce! For those of you who aren't familiar, "CSA" stands for community supported agriculture. This relatively new socio-economic concept changes the way food is produced, distributed and sold, creating small scale closed markets for farmers in which the consumer participates in the risk and rewards of the farm.
One of the great benefits of the CSA (in addition to receiving produce the day it is picked) is that it gives farmers more time to do what they do best --grow food. By cutting out the middle man, the farmers also receive more money for their crops and save time by not having to market produce to stores.
Earlier this year my family purchased a "share" in this season's crop from Abbondanza. This means we receive vegetables straight from the farm each week during the harvest months.
- Create a relationship with the person who grows your food
- Help farmers -money goes directly to grower, not middle man and chain stores
- Support neighborhood businesses --be a part of re-localization effort
- Reduce fossil fuel consumption used in food transport
- Support land intensive organic farming
- Purchase nutrient dense foods
- Eat locally
- Eat seasonally
- Eat fresh food
- Receive weekly basket of produce --often same day it is harvested
Frankly, our farm share is looking great this year --although we actually only purchased a "half share," we received more greens yesterday than I could figure out what to do with. This sent me rummaging through my recipes last night in search of culinary solutions to my vegetable overload.
The biggest "problem" was spinach. What to do with the several pounds of spinach crowding out the other greens in the veggie drawer of my fridge? Spinach cake of course!
1 ½ pounds spinach, thoroughly washed, leave stems on if they are not tough
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs, whisked
½ cup currants
1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
- Wilt spinach in a large covered saucepan, over low heat (do not add water) 5 minutes, until tender
- Drain and cool, then gently squeeze moisture out of spinach
- Place spinach in food processor and pulse until coarsely blended, then set aside
- In a small skillet, warm 3 tablespoons oil, add pine nuts and saute until golden brown
- Add garlic to pan of pine nuts and saute together an additional minute
- In a large bowl, combine pine nuts mixture, blended spinach, eggs, currants and salt
- Spread mixture into a greased 7 x 11 inch pyrex baking dish
- Bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes
- Serve
This spinach recipe is based on Claudia Roden's Tortino di Spinaci. As I have mentioned before, she is my all time favorite cookbook author. I often hear her speaking about the history of Jewish food on NPR. She is basically a food historian, as well as a culinary genius.
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do and that it solves your spinach harvest woes!
Posted on June 13, 2008 in cooked veggies by Elana
other entries you may like: Kale with Cranberries
or Stuffed Mushrooms
or Acorn Squash with Cranberry Apple Stuffing
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Before you leave a comment...
"Check out Elana's FAQ page for info on substitutions -- there are just too many possibilities so she can't answer all of these : ) But the Forums are an excellent resource and I highly recommend posting your substitution questions there; everyone is friendly and helpful." -Katie
Though I cannot see myself making this recipe, it does look absolutely divine.
This looks delicious!
We've been changing all our eating habits at my house, and I'm glad to have found your blog :)
Elana!!
What a delicious combination..
I love it!!
Is http://www.eatabbo.org/ in Seattle, Wa by any chance?
Ayden Thanks!
Lauraldawn Glad to have you stop by and thanks for you sweet comment.
Ya'ara -Thanks, if you make it let me know how it turns out for you :-)
Moi -It's in Boulder, CO., though I bet you have a bunch of CSA's in Seattle.
Elana, I nominated you for a blog award, Arte y Pico. It comes with a meme, but I chose not to do it as I'm all memed out. If you want to display the award, just copy it off this post:
http://milkforthemorningcake.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-builders-stole-my-mojo-and-straight.html
x x x
This looks absolutely delicious, Elana. Do you think it would work just as well with dried cranberries or green raisins instead of the currents?
I would appreciate some advice - from Elana or any of y'all...I am going out of town for 2 days for a friend's wedding. What healthy snacks would you bring? I am seriously considering making another batch of your amazing power bars (and not sharing them!!) :)
Looks delicious! I had considered a CSA this year but I was apparently late in joining and the only one still available that had half shares didn't really have stuff I like. Now I'm glad, because Iowa is pretty much entirely underwater and I'm sure there won't be much fresh produce available for the rest of the season :-(
This looks great...and easy to make! If I get spinach overload I'll most certainly try this.
Naomi -Thanks so much! Love your blog, especially the recent story of the wolf whistlers. You go girl!
~M - I like your substitution ideas for this recipe, I think they sound delicious. Per the traveling question, yes, I think the power bars would travel well. I also like to bring trail mix along with me when I go on vacation. Have a great trip!
Judith -Good decision and I'm so sorry about all of the flooding out there.
Megabeth -Thanks for stopping by and if you do make it, let me know how it turns out for you.
Love this blog!!! Great looking recipe!!! I love spinach!
Tara -Thanks for stopping by and for your feedback I really appreciate it!
This recipe looks delightful. Just the type of dish I love to eat. Thank you for sharing.
Great looking dish! I love how perfectly toasted the pine nuts got.
Alexa -Thanks for your kind words!
Maggie - Yes, the pine nuts are just delicious.
I made a completely gluten free Rosh Hashanah dinner. The spinach pie was loved by one and all. It was even better cold the next day. My kids have asked me to make it again so they can take it in their lunch.
Sheryl,
Thanks for stopping by with this great report! I really appreciate it and I'm glad the kids liked the cake.
Elana
L'Shana Tova Elana and guests!
I can report to you and to ~M that indeed, using cranberries instead is very yummy. Even with the corner-cutting version I made, I hesitate to admit, with frozen spinach from parts unknown. Also w/only 2 T of oil (ran out).
This is the first Elana's Pantry recipe I have tried, and I said a little Shehecheyanu (sp?) over it. I will probably try to make a version w/sunflower seeds (cheaper and okay for my nut-allergy cousins) as well.
Not only is tonight's edition delicious, it was pretty easy to make. And maybe other readers can relate to this -- after years of replacing this or that ingredient, it was exciting to cook something that was completely cooked in the time stated in the recipe, woo-hoo!
Thanks for sharing your work...
Hi Ninafur,
Thanks for stopping by and letting me know how your experimentation went! I really like to hear about results when people tinker.
Shehecheyanu is my younger son's favorite prayer (mine too), so thanks for sharing with me that you used it to bless the spinach cake.
I bet the sunflower seed version will be delicious, please let me know how it turns out if you make it for the nut-allergy cousins.
Shana Tova!
Elana
i made this for a gluten free dinner party and this was DIVINE! i definitely want to make this again and again!
susan,
Thanks so much for your comment; glad you enjoyed it!
Elana
[...] (Thanks to Elanas’s Pantry) [...]
Hello again, & Chag Sameach!
Sunflower seeds = okay.
Pepitas (pumpkin seeds) = fantastic!
They turn the oil bright green while being toasted, though you can't tell once everything is mixed together.
Also, I can't find my forum thread on this, so let me report that in the egg-replacing department, I do not recommend the flaxseed trick w/this recipe. That is unless you like stuff to gleam like low-quality (pseudo-)Asian food with too much cornstarch. =-] Mashed white beans worked well, but of course they don't bind together like the eggs. Worth a try if you've got an eater who can't have any eggs, bc the flavors of the basic recipe are quite yummy.
Ninafur,
Thanks for all of these great tips. I especially dig the idea of pumpkin seeds in this dish. Yum.
Chag Samaech!
Elana
Wow! Gluten-free, CSA-friendly AND Jewish! And a local! (we live in Superior). I am so thrilled to have found your blog.
Question about the spinach: will it work with frozen spinach? if so, how do I measure it?
I made it and it is just delicious!! I will try it with frozen spinach next time. I used raisins and it was great and even my spinach-hating husband liked it.I am so excited about finding your blog.As a previous e-mail said "gluten-free and Jewish" What a great combo.....Terrific!
Thanks for your comments ;-)
Per the frozen spinach, I haven't tried that. Feel free to experiment.
Hi there!
A friend of mine told me about your site and I have to say I really love it! I am looking to start on the Paleo diet and many of your recipes go along with it. I tried this spinach tonight with cranberries and it was devine! Even my picky 2 yr old ate it! I will be putting it on my blog to share with others. Thanks!!!
Thanks Briannna, I just love hearing stories about 2 year olds eating this type of food!
I have only been following your site for a couple of weeks. I am fascinated by your recipes. Everything I have tried has turned out and is delicious. I was excited when I read this recipe because I love all the ingredients separately. I did not have currants so I used raisins. I thought the raisins were too sweet. Since I really like sun-dried tomatoes I added some and they were good but a bit chewy. Even with the too sweet raisins and the chewy tomatoes I thought this was really good and fun to make. Thank you for all you do.
Made this today - it is delicious!! Thanks Elana!
Just made this (sadly with frozen spinach and raisins) as my family's contribution to a seder. It was a big hit with requests for a repeat next year! It was so delicious that I certainly won't be waiting 'til then to make it again. Thanks so much for the great (and super easy) recipe.
Thanks for the recipe! We loved it, even my 5 year old gobbled it down, he just started eating spinach a couple of weeks ago, he wouldn't touch it before that..
I did add 1 1/2 tablespoon of coconut flour as I am a new admirer of this flour and I like it's texture when added in foods.
This spiniach cake is amazingggg!
It goes perfectly with fish.
I will definitely be cooking this up once a week.
I just discovered your site a few days ago. Such inspiration! I just tried my first of your recipes - the CSA spinach cake recipe. No currants in the house, so I subbed apple juice-sweetened dried cranberries. DELICIOUS. Thank you.