![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Spinach Squares
Apr. 27th, 2021 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
monksandbonesThis recipe is on the page opposite one of my almost-memorized go-tos, and I've been eyeing it as a dish that could fill a very specific food niche in my life: a small early lunch. I have two breaks in my workday, one a little too early for a full lunch, and the second too late to wait to have lunch, and I've taken to bringing a small cold dish for "first lunch" and a slightly larger, usually warm one for "second lunch." Bonus if "first lunch" isn't just a plain bagel!
I'll say out of the gate that while I'll get several days' worth of first lunches out of this recipe, and it has veggies, protein, and a little whole grain, I'm not sure it's a winner. It turned out kind of along the lines of a moist savory cake or savory pancake baked in a cake pan, and what I really wanted (and, in fairness to the recipe, knew I wasn't going to get) was this amount of spinach and cheese in something more like a biscuit/savory scone.
~
Spinach Squares, from Simply in Season: A World Community Cookbook commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee
NOTE: results of recipe not particularly representative of the cookbook as a whole, which has a lot of simple but quite good recipes in it.
( The recipe )
I made some substitutions and changes: I used regular whole wheat flour, because that's what I had, and added a teaspoon of salt and what seemed like a generous amount of pepper to the batter (it's still on the bland side, I should have gone with my instinct to add red pepper flakes). I also used two rather than three eggs, because I didn't want it to be too eggy, and I think that was a good call. Finally, I used defrosted frozen chopped spinach, and probably just over a cup of cheese (pre-shredded tex-mex blend), because omg, 2 cups seems like a lot of cheese!
Anyway, I'll see how it is by tomorrow when it's cooled completely, and possibly I'll end up reheating it.
UPDATE: Apparently I did this recipe wrong by tasting it warm out of the oven! It was a lot tastier today, when my morning's slice had been in the fridge overnight, and it was tastier still when I reheated it a little in the microwave. Last night, it had a strong taste of whole-wheat flour (hence the pancake taste), but this morning that had faded and the spinach-cheese combination came through nicely!
Also see the comments for some reader suggestions for making it EVEN BETTER.
I'll say out of the gate that while I'll get several days' worth of first lunches out of this recipe, and it has veggies, protein, and a little whole grain, I'm not sure it's a winner. It turned out kind of along the lines of a moist savory cake or savory pancake baked in a cake pan, and what I really wanted (and, in fairness to the recipe, knew I wasn't going to get) was this amount of spinach and cheese in something more like a biscuit/savory scone.
~
Spinach Squares, from Simply in Season: A World Community Cookbook commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee
NOTE: results of recipe not particularly representative of the cookbook as a whole, which has a lot of simple but quite good recipes in it.
( The recipe )
I made some substitutions and changes: I used regular whole wheat flour, because that's what I had, and added a teaspoon of salt and what seemed like a generous amount of pepper to the batter (it's still on the bland side, I should have gone with my instinct to add red pepper flakes). I also used two rather than three eggs, because I didn't want it to be too eggy, and I think that was a good call. Finally, I used defrosted frozen chopped spinach, and probably just over a cup of cheese (pre-shredded tex-mex blend), because omg, 2 cups seems like a lot of cheese!
Anyway, I'll see how it is by tomorrow when it's cooled completely, and possibly I'll end up reheating it.
UPDATE: Apparently I did this recipe wrong by tasting it warm out of the oven! It was a lot tastier today, when my morning's slice had been in the fridge overnight, and it was tastier still when I reheated it a little in the microwave. Last night, it had a strong taste of whole-wheat flour (hence the pancake taste), but this morning that had faded and the spinach-cheese combination came through nicely!
Also see the comments for some reader suggestions for making it EVEN BETTER.
