Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One Hundred Sixty (Popeye Knew Best - Spinach As the Cure All)

Headache cure? Mom’s home cookin’!

Poor little Olivia never experienced anything like this in her 10 years.  A searing headache.  “It hurts so bad! I am going to get sick to my stomach!” 

Dad and mom inquired, “Olivia, what did you eat today?  Did you have any water?” 

These Spelt Right Doughs are READY to use

Breakfast=last night’s left over Mexican from local dive.

Lunch=mystery food from PS 123.

Snack from Aftercare = Candy?!?

Wednesday = CRAPPY FOOD DAY. 

CRAPPY FOOD DAY= Severe Headache. 

Mom needs to get back involved. 

Fast forward.  Mom made a bunch of Spelt Right Pizza dough today, brought some home and pondered an easy solution.  Spinach, onion and goat cheese fitayers! 

Ingredients:

Would Some PLEASE Send Me Some Decent Pans??

2 Spelt Right Pizza Doughs, fully thawed and risen

2 bunches of fresh spinach, rinsed with water (and vinegar for cleanliness), and spun

1 large onion

2 fresh lemons

1/4-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Sea Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

4 ounce log of chèvre (goat cheese)

Directions:

Chop onions into fours, place in food processor and chop.  Place chopped onions in medium sized bowl.

Shaping the Dough Into Triangles

Make sure the spinach is destemmed, rinsed, and dried well.  Chop as much as you can in food processor until all is chopped.  Place in bowl with onions.

Squeeze lemons (remove seeds). Add to bowl.  Add in EVOO, salt and pepper.  Toss altogether.

Cut each dough ball into 8-10 even size pieces, shape into rounds about 1/8 inch thick.  Place rounds on well oiled stainless steel baking sheet, preferably with edges.  Spread about two teaspoons of chevre on each round.  Squeeze a small handful of spinach mixture in hand (about 2 TBLS) (this is to squeeze out some of the liquid - do this over the bowl), and place in center of dough ball.  Make triangle with dough ball.   Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes or until brown on the bottom.

THE CURE ALL

As a side, I put the remaining spinach “juice”, strained and rinsed chick peas, and about 3 cups of left over rice in pan on the stovetop, and tossed together until warm.

End Result?  An Un-Whining of a Whiney Kid.  Good-bye to a headache that we hope will be a thing of the past – as long as mom continues to cook and wards off the outside assault of bad food.


We should have listened to POPEYE. all along.  This spinach pie definitely served as a our cure all.


"He's Popeye the Sailor Man. He's Popeye the Sailor Man. He's strong to the finich cause he eats his spinach, he's Popeye the sailor man."  


Can you imagine what Popeye would have thought of these spinach pies?

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One Hundred Fifty-One (On Simple Things in Life and Turkey and Cheese in a Pocket)

OK, it's true. The more I try to simplify my life, the more I fill in the holes with more to do. It's just who I am. Things don't change that easily. And. one thing that hasn't changed and likely never will is my obsession with feeding my family and friends and colleagues and neighbors well (and looking for simple solutions for busy lives). Look out neighborhood! I might show up with basket of goodies or some warm soup!!!

Here's a simple recipe. Perfect for school lunches or an after school snack. Turkey and cheese in a Spelt Right pocket. YUMM!

TURKEY AND CHEESE HUGGED BY SPELT RIGHT DOUGH

Ingredients: One Spelt Right Pizza dough fully thawed and proofed. (That means that it should fill the bag after it has risen). Your favorite cold meats and cheeses. Mayonnaise or other dressing if desired. We used all natural turkey and cheddar cheese.

Lightly oil (with EVOO) a stainless steel baking pan. Preheat oven to 375-400F

Cut dough into 6-8 equal pieces. Stretch dough to about 1/8 inch thick in circle. Place a fair amount of turkey and cheese or other filling on half of dough. Gently stretch over berries and pinch on ends (see pictures).Place on baking sheet; bake for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom.

Can be served cold or reheated. My kids had these for lunch and after school snacks and loved them! As Olivia said, "this is not food; it is art."

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Twelve (Spelt Right Pita Rounds and Mediterranean Salad)

Pita Rounds (with a Mediterranean Salad)

The spelt pita is a great way to add something special to a meal or to use as a "pocket" for a cold sandwich.

Take one package of Spelt Right pizza dough. Let double in size in the bag. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Make 6-7 rounds, roll to 1/8 to 1/4 inch on board with finely ground corn meal (to keep it from sticking). Slide onto lightly oiled pan.

Bake until puffed and lightly browned! Here's how it looks through the oven window:

The beginning

Starting to puff

Puffed!


We made a Mediterranean Salad to go with the bread. This would be good in a small container in a lunch box or as a refreshing summer side salad. Yum!

Mediterranean Salad Recipe
Chop 3 small cucumbers, 2 fresh tomatoes (we used Backyard Farms), 1/4 c. Calamata olives. Combine.
Add juice from 2 fresh lemons, 2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley, salt & pepper to taste. Mix. Eat it up!

Mediterranean Salad with Spelt Pita

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Four (Ham and Cheese Fitaya)

Warning! These are not for the vegan and Kosher folks out there. I don't eat ham, but my kids do and they loved these.

Here's our next variation on our soon to be famous spelt triangles: the ham and cheese stuffer. Take a thawed Spelt Right pizza dough and follow the same technique as described in previous posts. We used Applewood Uncured Ham Steak (no nitrites or nitrates added) and cubes of aged Australian Cheddar Cheese. Chop ham and cheese in small cubes. Scoop about 2 teaspoons more or less in the center of the dough. Shape the triangle. See earlier posts for more explicit directions. Bake them at 450 for 10 minutes or until brown. These should be refrigerated or frozen if not eaten right away. Good if warmed with a microwave or toaster oven, but also fine cold. Two-thumbs up from everyone who tried them!!

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Three (Spinach Fitayas with Spelt Right dough)

HERE IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITE RECIPES that I've posted before. It always gets two thumbs up from everyone, but they are best reheated either microwaved or toasted (my preference).

Arabic spinach pies (fatayer)
(Makes ten 5- inch triangle fatayer-perfect for meals or parties)

Ingredients:
· 2 one-pound Spelt Right pizza doughs - let thaw in fridge and then double in size on the counter (keep in plastic bag). If you are in New England, you can find Spelt Right pizza dough in select Whole Foods or independent health food stores. If you can't find Spelt Right dough in your local store, ask them for it or substitute another dough (boo hoo!)
· 10 ounces fresh spinach (a typical bag) (rinsed, de-stemmed, and chopped finely)
· One medium onion (chopped finely)
· Juice from 2 whole lemons
· ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
· ½ teaspoon of salt
· ¼ teaspoon of pepper
· Feta or other cheese (optional)
· Pine nuts (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix the chopped spinach, chopped onions, fresh lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Set aside.

· Cut 5 even sized dough balls for each one pound dough ball for a total of 10 dough balls. You can make 6 per ball if you like.
· Stretch or roll the dough to about a ¼ inch thick (more or less) rounds and place on oiled pan.
· Place about 2 tablespoons of spinach onion mix in the center of a five-inch round
· Fold the three sides of the dough over the spinach to form a triangle. Secure the dough by overlapping the dough when forming the triangle and pinching each side together.
· Bake in 450 - 475 oven for about 20 minutes. They are done when the dough becomes slightly golden.
· As a variation, you can add a dollop of cheese and a few pine nuts on the spinach before making the triangle
· ENJOY!

(These freeze well)

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One (Sloppy Joe Spelt Right Fitayas)

Let the project begin! Here is the first day of the Lunch Box Chronicles. No, we are not trying to be Julie in Julia and Julie - though the idea did give us a little boost.

We are trying to help parents and kids climb out of the doldrums of boring homemade school/home lunches and the disgusting highly processed school provided lunches. We are a family with a strict eating code: No artificial anything, no way, no how!







We are turning lunches into a slight geometry lesson. You need to know how to make a triangle out of dough (we prefer Spelt Right dough). We will use only ALL NATURAL ingredients and will endeavor to create 365 different lunch TRIANGLES for your sweet little ones! Sometimes, these lunch triangles may morph into a dinner triangle or a dessert triangle.

Our rating system is evolving, but we will start with two thumbs up for really good, one thumb up for pretty good, one thumb sideways for ok, but not worth the effort, and one thumb down for totally don't try this one.

DAY ONE: Sloppy Joe Fitayers. Ingredients: Every recipe starts out with two thawed one pound Spelt Right pizza doughs (you can use your own dough, but this is a little self promotion here). See the picture on how the dough should be thawed. Each recipe varies by what is stuffed inside. The stuffing for this recipe is 4-8 ounces grass fed ground beef (we like local), 1/2 onion chopped finely, 2 TBL extra virgin olive oil, a few tablespoons of your favorite pasta or pizza sauce (we used Enrico's this time), grated mozzarella cheese.

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil, add ground beef until fully cooked, mix in tomato sauce. Set aside. The dough balls can be cut into 6 good size or 12 small size balls. Lightly oil a cookie sheet or other flat cooking pan. Stretch out or roll dough balls to about 1/4 inch thick. Scoop 2 teaspoonfuls (more or less) of meat mixture on to dough ball, sprinkle with grated mozzarella cheese. Shape into triangles (see pictures). (We are tricking you here because the photo is with stuffed spinach...that's the only picture we had at the moment, but wanted to show you the process)

Bake on cookie sheet for 15 minutes at 450 F. Done when brown. Can be refrigerated or frozen and reheated in toaster oven or microwave.

Judges today: Spencer - age 12, two thumbs up; Olivia -age 8, two thumbs up; Tim age - 49, one thumb sideways.....Simply not juicy enough for Tim, but the kids loved them! PS We made these for dinner, but think they would work great in a lunch box, especially if they have a chance to heat them up!

PS: We love suggestions....especially as we go along.