Comfort Greens

I was flipping through my Chatelaine and found a recipe for spinach and kale hand pies. There are three great reasons why you should try this recipe.

1)  I try and incorporate kale into our dishes because kale is a great leafy green for that has a high content of iron and folic acids.  Kale is anti-oxidant rich and contains calcium, potassium and vitamins A,C and K.  Perfect for vegetarians. For this specific dish, having both the spinach (also high in iron and anti-oxidants) and kale makes this a super terrific iron enriched dish!

2) Kale and spinach is inexpensive and can go a long way in almost any dish.

3) This recipe called for me to make individual hand pies but I needed to clean out the almost freezer burned vegetables I found so I purchased phyllo pastry instead. With phyllo pastry you can make a fatter stuffing because the pastry stretches, so, you can go through your fridge and stuff anything in this recipe that's about to go bad. In my case, I used up some corn, frozen and fresh spinach that I had.

I tweaked this recipe quite a bit.

Kale and Spinach Hand Pies

Chatelaine: April/ 2013 issue 

Ingredients ( for filling only)

• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• 1 1/1 tsp of curry powder
• 1/4 tsp of red peper chili flakes
• 1/4 tsp of pepper
• 1 small punch of kale (stem and ribs removed) should make about 4 cups
• 171 grams of spinach
• 1 cup of frozen corn (or 1/2 of frozen corn and 1/2 of frozen peas)
• 1 egg beaten (and 1 egg for egg wash)
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of feta
• Frozen phyllo pastry that has been thawed in the fridge over night. 

Directions:

• Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. 
• Add oil, then the onion. Sprinkle with curry powder, chili flakes and pepper. Cook until the onion starts to soften, about 2 minutes. 
• Add the kale and cook until it wilts which should take 4 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook until spinach wilts, 3 minutes. I would then mix in your frozen veggies for two more minutes and then remove from heat and cool. 
• Drain any excess liquid, then stir in beaten egg, cinnamon and feta. 
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Remove the dough from the fridge. Flatten out where you can evenly cut two large rectangles.
• Which egg yolk with one tablespoon of water for egg wash. Take a pastry brush, dip it in the egg wash and start brushing the outer edges of the pastry but only on one side as you will be folding the rectangle together with the stuffing. 
• Put half of your mix and place it near the edge (where you put the egg wash) and then fold the other half of the rectangle on top of the egg wash side. You would then either take a fork and press down the sides or roll up the sides as I did to secure your stuffing and then brush more of the egg wash on top of the now make log. You would now cut three slits on top of the log. 
• Do the exact same as described in the previous step for the second log. You should be able to place both on the same baking sheet.
• Bake for 25 to 30  minutes and let stand for 10 minutes before serving. 

Before the spinach wilts

Once the stuffing has been put into the puff pastry. You can see how I twisted the opening closed and then put on the egg wash.

Finished product!

Coming soon! My adventure making a meatloaf, pumpkin muffins and a birthday pizza!