Spinach and Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Ok, I splurged. Spinach is not on most frugal shopping lists in this country.

Here's what happened: I was at Mega for a 10% off day (Friday, select locations only) and I decided to splurge and buy a bag of frozen spinach. First I checked the fresh produce section to see if there were any suitable fresh greens that would work out cheaper. But there weren't. They had chard, but the bunches were small, buggy, and wilted. And cost 8.99. But I decided against that in favor of spinach, because once I cleaned, chopped, and wilted the chard, it would have been a lot of effort, and not so much chard.

So I bought a bag of frozen spinach, for just over 20 NIS with the discount.

My family likes spinach, so I justify the purchase of a bag of spinach every so often.

I wanted to stretch it to last a few meals, so here's the first spinach recipe I made, using about 1/3 of the bag.

Spinach and Cottage Cheese pancakes

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 package of spinach (about 265 grams - maybe 8-9 oz?)
400 g cottage cheese (approx 1 lb)
2 cups whole wheat flour
salt, pepper to taste
nutmeg if you like it

Mix well. It will be pretty thick. Spoon heaping spoonfuls into a hot, oiled skillet, and brown on both sides. Serve hot.

Ok so this is not the best picture. But as you can see, I used very little oil to cook these in my enameled cast iron frying pan. And I really like that blue pan. I have the same in green for pareve, and one in red for meat. I also have a regular, not enameled cast iron frying pan. That one is pareve, and gets used almost every time I cook!

Variations: you can lower the cost of this by using less expensive greens than spinach. Sometimes chard or beet greens are a lot cheaper. Here in Israel, you might try lowering the cost of your cottage cheese by subbing PART of it with Eshel or Gil .

If you have a couple extra shekels, these are really amazing when you use 1/2 cottage cheese and 1/2 feta cheese. This will raise the cost a bit, as feta DOES cost more than cottage cheese, so this is not a good option when looking to lower your costs.

Sick Day Stew

I woke up this morning with a head cold and I'm trying to get over it. I have had a ton of tea, made soup for lunch... and when it was supper time, I only wanted soup, but it needed to be filling enough for my kids too.

So here is what I did:

I threw the following into a pot:

8-10 cups of chopped milk thistle (I foraged these milk thistle plants from out in back of my house, but if you can't do that, or don't want to, you can use spinach or chard... The 10 cup measure is for raw. This equals about 1 normal size package of frozen spinach)
1 onion, diced
4 carrots, diced
2 kishuim, sliced (kishuim are a light green squash, very similar to zucchini. the main difference is their color.)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
soup stock
extra water
salt, pepper to taste
Later, when it was at a full rolling boil, I added a package of whole wheat lokshen noodles, and my leftover veggie meatballs from the other day...

Bring back to a boil and simmer for 5-7 more min. Serve hot.

Enjoy!

Shavuot Menu!

I can't believe it's Shavuot already! I love cheese, and cheesecake, and using my great-grandmother's dairy china (I never met my great grandmother, but since my grandparents gave us the china when we got married, it makes me think of them. They were amazing, wonderful, special grandparents. I think of them all the time, and I know they are watching over us.)...

(I just don't love the custom of staying up all night, but that's another story)

Anyhow, I am throwing frugality out the window for the chag. It is, after all, the shortest chag. It's only one day. And cheese is not a frugal food but somehow I've already purchased a LOT of mozzarella, cheddar, feta, and bulgarian cheese. Not to mention gevinah levana, cottage cheese, and more...

I'm planning to make the following foods that my family loves:


Creamy mushroom soup

Broccoli Puff (chopped broccoli, cottage cheese, shredded cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, some flour. all combined and baked together)

Spinach Puff (same idea as above, but with chopped spinach)

Lasagna (with homemade tomato sauce)


Fingerling Potatoes

Make your own salad (greek salad style)


Brownies


Mini Cheesecakes

That sounds like enough, but I might bake something else in case someone around here actually decides to stay up very late learning. And pop some popcorn (I love the air popper!).

Sunday Night, Feb. 6, 2011

Shavua Tov! I had a very relaxing Shabbat in Yerushalayim. It was great to see family and friends whom we rarely get to see.

It's a new week, and in the past, Sunday night supper has snuck up on me and often caught me off guard. Now, I have a plan! (This meal planning thing is great! I am stretching my shekels so much further, and feeling much less stressed out!)

Here's the menu, using only things that I have on hand (not sure if I will make it to the store or not early in the day - I haven't planned my grocery run, yet!):

Green Bean Soup
Broccoli or Spinach "Puff"
Couscous
Chick Pea & Tomato Salad

Some notes about these dishes:

Green Bean Soup works very well either with EXTREMELY fresh green beans (garden or farm stand), or frozen ones (these are usually harvested and frozen the same day, so they are very fresh). It does not work well with supermarket "fresh" green beans. Here's what I do: Sautee onion and garlic in olive oil till translucent. Add green beans to the pot, stirring and heating till they are bright green. Add water or soup stock. Heat through, puree, add milk or rice milk to make it "creamy", and season with salt and pepper.

Broccoli or Spinach Puff: (Yes, these are slightly less frugal than the other menu items, but we all have to add some variety and remember to not be so thrifty as to never make our kids' favorite foods. My 3 yr old loves anything with spinach and my 12 yr old loves anything with broccoli. I know, go figure...) Mix the following ingredients together and bake in a deep casserole dish at 375 F for 1 hour: 16 oz. cottage cheese, 2 eggs, 4 oz. shredded cheese of your choice, 2 T. flour, 2 c. chopped broccoli or chopped spinach, salt and pepper to taste.

Chick Pea & Tomato Salad - don't forget to soak the chick peas overnight, and cook them early in the day (or use canned - but that costs a lot more per unit, and then you also have to deal with the question of BPA in cans. I prefer to soak and cook them myself.), as these chick peas should be completely cooled before combining with tomatoes and green onions for this salad...

As usual, let me know what you think!