Category: Spinach


Feb
2024

Spinach Pancakes

categories: 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Spinach, Vegetarian

Hello friends and welcome to a return to the wonderful vintage cookbook, The A-Z of Cooking. The last time I visited this book was back in 2016/17 when I cooked a LOT of recipes from it. There were only a few recipes left that I wanted to cook and this one for spinach pancakes with tomato sauce was top of the list! I love the combination of spinach and cheese – in spanakopita, in cannelloni and these pancakes did nothing to change my mind!

Spinach Pancakes 1

 

The finished pancakes looked very much like cannelloni!  And to be honest, while the taste was great, this was a lot of work.  The sauce needed to simmer for a few hours, the pancakes took some time to cook, the wrapping and rolling was fiddly.  Alas, no two of my rolled pancakes were the same size!  By the time these came out of the oven I was almost too tired to eat.  It was only the day after that realised this recipe was in the “Night Before” chapter of the A-Z.  It would have been far less tiring to make the sauce and pancakes the day before!  

Spinach Pancakes 2

Maybe because I was thinking of cannelloni, the method of cooking seemed a bit odd to me.  The recipe says to fill the pancakes, place them in the baking dish and then sprinkle cheese over the top. You were then meant to serve the sauce on the side.  

Spinach Pancakes 3

I did this but about half way through the cook, I gave into to the urge to pour the sauce over the top!  I then added more cheese.

 

Spinach Pancakes 4

Deeelicious!

Spinach Pancakes with Tomato Sauce – The Recipe

Spinach Pancakes Recipe

My notes on the recipe

  • I used frozen spinach
  • I subbed ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese
  • Leave yourself plenty of time – this took me around 3 and a half hours all up.  

 

And, if l like me you can’t get enough spinach and cheese, here are some other ways you can spin these flavours!

Have a great week!

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Jun
2022

Hummer Strudels

categories: 1980's recipes, Lobster, Magazines, Seafood, Spinach, Vogue Entertaining & Travel

Welcome friends.  Today we are channelling our inner Gordon Gekko’s and subscribing to the credo of  Greed is Good”  to make some luxurious Hummer Strudels.  These are coming to us via Vogue Entertaining and Travel from Autumn 1986. Now, greed and huge shoulder pads may have been good in the 1980s but this name is not.  To me, hummers are giant gas-guzzling cars nearly always filled with semi-drunk teenagers off to a school formal (aka prom for my American friends).  It makes no sense why this is called a Hummer strudel.  It also possibly made no sense to the magazine editor who added a subtitle to the recipe so everyone knew they were going to be eating Crayfish and Spinach Strudels.

Hummer Strudel 1

Or were they?  Let’s address the Hummer-sized elephant in the room.  These also aren’t really strudels.  I guess it depends on a definition of a strudel but to my mind, a strudel has layers of pastry wrapped around a filling.   I would call this thing a pasty or an empanada or, if these are considered cultural appropriation, then maybe a hand-pie.    Maybe these terms were all too common for the la-di-dah folks of 1986?

Hummer Strudells 2

Hummer Strudells 4

Hummer Strudels – The Recipe

The pastry was really short and rich and the spinach, lobster tail and cream filling was delicious!  But just because we are adopting the 80’s creed of “greed is good” for today’s meal, it doesn’t mean our 2020’s sensibilities need to suffer.  I waited to make this until I could find some highly discounted lobster tails in my local supermarket. These were on sale for  $1.50 each!  If you are unable to find cheap lobster tails most other seafood would work in this – prawns, scallops, or even any firm white fish.  Or a mix of any of them. If you are not a seafood lover, chicken would also work and for a vegetarian version, mushrooms would be great!

Hummer Strudells 3

A quick note on the pastry too.  The OG recipe calls for both lard and butter.  I used coconut oil instead of lard and as mentioned above, the pastry turned out beautifully!

Hummer Strudel recipe 1

For the two lobster tails, I used half quantities of all the other ingredients which made 8 hand pies.  So enough to share…or not!

The Hummer Strudels were delicious!  So why not channel your inner 80’s icon, stream Wall Street and make these this soon!

Have a  great week everyone!

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