Today’s recipe comes from Steven Biggs, speaker and author specializing in gardening, farming, and food production!
A few words from Steven: Make this Spanakopita-like pastry using what seasonal ingredients you have available. In our household, the filling changes with the season. We might use onions (ramps would be nice too!) and spinach in the spring, leeks and chard in the fall. I never scrimp on the dill as I love dill. (Tip: Freeze chopped dill so that you have it available all year…it’s much better than dried dill.)
There’s no need to buy lemon juice, a common ingredient in this style of pastry. Instead, use lemony sorrel leaves, which provide the zing that lemon juice normally would. Sorrel is an easy-to-grow perennial that you can think of as a lemon substitute for northerners!
My claim to Swiss chard fame is that I cooked it on TV after a show asked me to talk about gardening in November. Instead, I suggested cooking fall garden fare that people might not be sure how to use in the kitchen. This is the recipe I made, using plump leeks, a rainbow of beautifully coloured chard, dill, and—the secret ingredient—sorrel.
I don’t measure the amounts of veg. It varies depending on what’s available—and how things taste. And how I feel. Taste the filling as you’re making it—if it tastes good in the skillet, it will taste good in the pastry.
• Chop and fry an onion or leek in butter;
• Cook until soft (but not brown and caramelized);
• As the onion or leek becomes translucent, add chopped spinach or chard. You want to wilt it—not cook it at length—so it only needs a minute (if you are using large chard leaves in the fall, the ribs might need a minute or two more in the skillet, so add before the rest of the leaf is added);
• Add chopped sorrel leaves to give a lemony zing;
• Mix contents of skillet with chopped dill, feta cheese, an egg, and salt and pepper;
• Make a pastry shell using your favourite recipe and bake;
• Or, use a store-bought phyllo pastry. When using phyllo pastry, lay a sheet flat, brush with melted butter, then repeat until you have a thickness of three or four sheets. Cut into strips (5 or 6 long strips from a sheet). Put a couple tablespoons on each section, and then fold over. Bake at 450°F for 8-12 minutes (till golden brown).
About Steven Biggs: Steven Biggs is a speaker and author specializing in gardening, farming, and food production. He believes the best way to grow non-gardeners into avid gardeners is for them to see how fun gardening (and cooking food from the garden!) really is (just ask him about his parsnip wine!) Steven’s book No Guff Vegetable Gardening (www.noguffvegetablegardening.com), a Canadian bestseller, is a fun and practical look at growing vegetables in the home garden. His award-winning book Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t (www.grow-figs.com) is full of ideas for growing figs in cold climates. His latest book, Grow Gardeners: Kid-tested Gardening with Children (www.growgardeners.com), written with his nine-year-old daughter, Emma, if full of ideas about how to make the garden—and outdoor play—fun for children.
Connect with Steven at:
https://www.facebook.com/stevenabiggs
https://www.facebook.com/StevenBiggsWriter/
https://www.facebook.com/GrowFigs/
https://www.facebook.com/GardenCoachesChat/
Twitter: @NoGuffSteve