Spinach and Feta Pie

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.