Kid Vs. Produce

The Salad Wars rage on here at headquarters and I’ve struck a blow for the side of leafy greens by wielding one of my favorite weapons:  bacon. As Buffi says: “Jenny, bacon is ALWAYS the answer.” One of the things The Boy has complained about with regards to salad is he doesn’t like the crunchy pieces. I don’t even get that, considering he’ll eat croutons until his palate is shredded. Being that this is the case (for now, bwahahaha) I figured a nice, tender, baby spinach would be a good starting point.

And then I remembered this salad that my mom and her girlfriends used to have when they’d gather to catch up on life while the kids ran around half-naked in the backyard. Granted the ladies never served theirs with boxed stuffing mix, but they also weren’t trying to appease The Boy.

I don’t know if this is the classic spinach salad or not, but it is always delicious and filling. I have seen a lot of recipes that include button mushrooms, but I’m not a fan. What I am a fan of is garnishing with mandarin orange segments. Mmmm. Here’s what we started with:
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Oy! I’ve been cooking up a storm, and taking pictures up a storm, but I haven’t had a free minute to scratch my booty let alone write about our produce smackdown.  As a result I’ve got a backlog of posts just waiting for the finishing touches, and I’m going to have to learn how to schedule post so I don’t forget to make them live.

Along with the puff pastry from the Chicken Pot Pie night, I had stashed a box of filo dough in the freezer.  I love filo like nobody’s business, and I invent excuses to use it a few times a year.  You just can’t go wrong with flaky pastry + butter in my universe, and even The Boy has been known to roll his eyes up into his head in ecstasy  when biting into a filo pastry.

It was time for more leafy greens, and after the Greek Quiche reaction (also known as “Meh”)  I wanted to let the spinach flavor stand on its own.

It was time for Spinach Handpies.

Here’s what I started with:

• About 1/3 a cup of olive oil
• A big old thing of organic baby spinach, washed and dried in the spinner (vroom!)
• A handful of garlic cloves
• Salt, pepper and paprika
• About 1/4 onion, diced
• About 1/4 cup of red bell pepper, diced
• About a tablespoon of fresh oregano
• About 1/4 cup of feta, crumbled
• 1/2 a can of water chestnuts, chopped
• 1 stick of butter, melted (aw yeah)
• 1/2 box of filo dough.  (I used the other half for apple handpies, which I’ll post later)

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Probably three years ago, The Boy and I went together to our local Dinner My Way restaurant and assembled some entrees for the freezer.  One of the dishes we came home with was called “Spinach Pie” and was basically a quiche using fresh baby spinach, onion, Greek olives, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese, among other ingredients.  It was also topped with puff-pastry, which I thought was overkill.  Anyway, The Boy actually loved this pie, and I’ve been banging around in the kitchen trying to duplicate it for the last three years to no avail.

Let’s just say that making a quiche with an entire brick of feta will yield something so salty you will need to drink a gallon of water after one bite, and then you’ll be throwing it all away.  Learn from me, friends!

The other night, I made another run at it.
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