The Breakfast Challenge – Lemony Mushrooms and Spinach with 2 Minute Hollandaise

by Linda on June 25, 2011

There is a small miracle in the number of things that grow well together, taste good together, and are good for you together.  Corn and beans, tomatoes and basil,  broccoli and cheese, turmeric and pepper…

Spinach and lemon juice join the list.  I first had very lemony mushrooms and spinach at The Gun Shop Cafe in Brisbane many years ago, and it was one of those simple but sensational dishes that brilliant chefs make.  It’s not co-incidental that they are in season together – simple dishes depend on fresh, perfect, in season ingredients.  Neither is it co-incidental that they are so good for you in combination – our ancestors who liked the taste of things that kept them healthy got to live to be our ancestors! It all makes sense, but it still feels like such a nice little miracle .

The hollandaise sauce looks so decadent, but it truly takes just 2 minutes to make and has just a teaspoon of butter per serve.  It’s a very tasty way to add a bit of protein to the breakfast.  I’m harvesting the first of the season’s spinach now, rich in antioxidant beta carotene, iron and folic acid, and the lemon in the recipe makes the iron available. Mushrooms are loaded with dietary fiber and a good source of potassium, copper, selenium, and B vitamins. Put it on homemade sourdough and you’re set.

(The Breakfast Cereal Challenge is my 2011 challenge – a year’s worth of breakfast recipes based on in-season ingredients, that are quick and easy enough to be a real option for weekdays, and that are preferable, in nutrition, ethics, and taste,  to the overpackaged, overpriced, mostly empty packets of junk food marketed as “cereal” . The Muesli Bar Challenge was my 2010 Challenge.)

The Recipe:

This recipe makes two good serves.

Put some good wholegrain sourdough on to toast.

Then start with the hollandaise.

Melt a dessertspoon of butter in a small pot. Take care not to brown it.

Use a blender, stick blender or a whisk to blend together 1 egg, three dessertspoons of lemon juice and a pinch of salt.

With the blender going, pour the hot butter very slowly into the egg and lemon mix.  It should go thick and creamy.  If it isn’t thick enough, pour back into the small pot and heat, stirring, for just a few seconds.  It will turn almost instantly.

Now on to the mushrooms and spinach.

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy pan till it is quite hot.  Then add 300 grams of sliced mushrooms (about 10 medium mushrooms).  You can add a clove of crushed garlic if you like.

Cook for a minute till the mushrooms start to brown then add two cups of baby spinach leaves, or larger spinach leaves roughly chopped, along with a little squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper.  Cook for just a minute more until the spinach wilts.

Pile the mushrooms and spinach on the toast and top with a good dollop of hollandaise.

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Spinach and Feta Pie

by Linda on December 3, 2010

Christine at Slow Living Essentials wrote a great post a little while ago about creating a “meal tree” for a new mum.  This is my turn in a meal tree to celebrate the arrival of baby Hilah.  It is one of my favourite recipes for this.  Silver beet for its folate and its iron, feta and cottage cheese for their calcium, eggs for their protein,  nothing in it to upset breast feeding, easy to transport, good hot or cold, and the whole thing easy enough to make and drop off on my way to work this morning.

The Recipe:

This recipe makes two pies (I made one for our dinner as well while I was at it), each around 25cm diameter.

Turn your oven on to heat up.

Strip the green leaf off the stems from a large bunch of silver beet and blanch for a couple of minutes in boiling water, just to wilt the leaves.  Drain well, pushing down with a fork or a potato masher to squeeze out all the water, and allow to cool a little.

While the silver beet is cooling, make the pastry.

In your food processor, blend together 1¼ cups of wholemeal plain flour and 120 grams of cold butter, chopped into little cubes.  Blend for a minute until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Add water, a spoonful at a time, until you have a soft dough that you can knead very briefly then roll out.

Flour your work surface, divide the dough into two balls, and roll it out to fit your two pie dishes.

The Filling:

You don’t need to wash your food processor.

Blend together:

  • the cooled, blanched silver beet
  • 200 grams of cottage cheese
  • 300 grams of feta cheese
  • 6 to 8 eggs, depending on their size.

Pour the filling into the unbaked pie shells.

Sprinkle a little grated cheese over the top.

Bake in a moderate oven for around 45 minutes until the filling is set and the pastry is browning.  The filling will set a bit more as it cools.

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Spinach and Feta Piroshki

by Linda on September 29, 2010

The kids are on school holidays, so there’s no Muesli Bar Challenge baking this week.  So I thought I’d do some adult lunch box baking instead.  One of my favourite bought lunches is a spinach and feta pie – yummy but full of fake fats.  And I feel very silly buying it when I have so much silver beet in the garden at present.

This is a bread dough based pastry, which means that it is very low fat.  Filled with a mixture of silver beet or spinach and low fat feta cheese, it is about as healthy as you get in a pie.

The Recipe

This takes a while, but most of the time is waiting for the bread dough to rise.

The Dough

In a big mixing bowl, dissolve a good teaspoon of dry yeast in a cup of ‘baby’s bottle warm’ water.  Add a dessertspoon of honey, cover the bowl, and leave it in a warm spot for 5 minutes.  It should froth, showing the yeast is alive.  If not, you have dud yeast and you can give up now.

If your yeast develops a bit of froth though, stir in a beaten egg, then mix in 2 cups of wholemeal plain flour and a teaspoon of salt. Flour your work surface well and knead the dough until it is smooth and springy.  Like all bread kneading, the more the merrier, but about 5 minutes is a good guide.

Put a little swig of olive oil in your bowl and return the dough to the bowl, swirling it around to coat.  Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave it in a warm place for a couple of hours until it doubles in bulk.  (I find in this Spring weather, the dashboard of the car parked in the sun with the windows up makes a good warm spot).

The Filling

Strip the leaves from the stalks of a bunch of silver beet.  Blanch in boiling water for just a minute or two, drain well, then blend with 60 to 120 grams of low fat feta cheese (depending on how cheesy you like it).  I like to just pulse it briefly so there is still some texture.

Assembling

Turn your oven on to heat up.

Flour your work surface, tip the dough out and knead it just for a minute to knock it down.  Divide it into 9 balls. Flatten the balls between the palms of your hands, then stretch the dough into flat circles about 10 cm across.

Put a heaped dessertspoon of filling on one side of the circle, fold the dough over, and press the edges together with a fork.  You can fill them quite full – unlike pastry dough, the bread dough will stretch so they won’t tend to bust out as they cook.

Put your filled piroshki on an oiled tray and prick the top with a fork.  Leave them to rise for 5 minutes, then bake in a medium hot oven for around 20 to 30 minutes till golden.

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Spinach and Feta Omelette Pikelets

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