Spinach Triangles

I did big cooking. Big.  I decided to prepare myself some yummies for the week of recovery.  I made spinach triangles, chicken pot pies, and spanikopita (which I still have to finish).

Ok, I seriously made all three of these dishes simultaneously which made it much easier, sort of.  In essence, they are all things you cook and then stuff into something else.

Spinach Triangles
First, I made the dough for the spinach triangles:
3 C flour
1/2 t yeast in 1/4 C warm water with 1 T maple syrup
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 cup more water.

Combine and knead until a nice dough is formed.  Oil the dough ball and let rise until doubled in size.

The recipe for them is here at Wandering Spice
I made minor mistakes adjustments along the way.  While the dough was rising in a warm spot, I made the filling.

Filling:
2 packages baby spinach
salt
lemon juice
olive oil
lemon zest
1 small onion chopped fine and cooked in olive oil

I varied these amounts to taste.  You can follow the recipe link above for real amounts.

Woah.  Realizing I need to back way up here for this all to make sense.

Okay, so I needed to cook so that I have food to heat up and eat that is healthy and yummy since I am having surgery Tuesday.  Yesterday I realized that I am not functioning well without an unreasonable amount of pain medication so today I wanted to take it very slow.  We had a lot to do and Nate asked me to make a list.  So I took out the sticky notes from my personal binder organizer (will share that bit of genius on another post) and made a post for each task and put them on the frige.  This way, we can pull them off when done.  Cleaning, cooking, shopping.  Basically.  And all I can think about making is spinach triangles.  I had them at Pita Pocket near the Walmart in Dartmouth and they were good but I put both my hummus and my tabouli on them.  They were just spinach and onions in dough.  Then my friend brought me some from the Lebanese place in Fall River near BCC and they were so different and yummy.  I tasted a sweetness, a lemony bit and a crazy spinach texture.  How do they get spinach like this?  Well, that part at least, I did figure out.

You take the raw spinach, chop it up and put it in a bowl.  Then, put some salt on it and massage it in (kind of like the massaged kale salad that I will have to post some time soon).  Then squeeze the excess water out of the spinach.  I should have rinsed the spinach but I didn't.  I used the Maldon sea salt so it's not bad to have the salt in there.

Then I realized I had rotten lemons.  So I used the bottled lemon juice.  The mixture tasted perfect but once cooked, it really needed more lemon.

I rolled out the dough and made one batch of small ones, using a biscuit cutter.  Hold the circle in your hand, use a fork to put in a bit of the filling, then lift up three parts to the middle to make a little package.  I brushed a little egg wash on them before baking them at 350 until golden brown.  The next two batches I made big ones using a super large mug as a guide.  This recipe made 6 large triangles, and 9 small ones.

Yes, they are totally delicious.  Next time I would add way more lemon.  I intend to buy some new lemons and then squeeze more on before eating.  I froze three of them unbaked for this week.  

The chicken pot pie recipe is here.  I froze all of them unbaked and can just bake when I want them.  Actually, Nate can bake them for me.  

Today I will finish off the spanikopita and take some pictures of it.  I have a lot to learn about food photography but I think I am getting a little bit better.  

I must say I am totally freaking out about surgery tomorrow.  I have done a lot of work on feeling my fears and hopes, but still it is very intense.  I know this one is much simpler than last time, but still it is for lack of a better new word here, intense.  

Anyway, if you want to come visit, I will share my frozen yummies with you :)

Cute Little Chicken Pot Pies

This is me in my fantastic cooking chair.  Nate calls it the captain's chair.  You see how tiny my lil kitchen is and how I can basically push myself all over.  The chair cost about $150 and it's from Staples - it was their last one so you'd have to order it online.  The gate is to keep Misty the Cat from being under the wheels.  When I cook, Misty thinks it is all for her and will hang out under me.  I think she may have possibly noticed how much stuff falls to the floor when I am at the helm.

Over my February break, I made these chicken pot pies for the first time with my friend Cindy.  We knew we would want lots of them so we made tons extra and froze them.  Since then, I have made them twice more - making tons extra for freezing.  Freeze them before baking.

Today I came home feeling a way-too-swift return of my leg pain post-epidural.  No doubt made worse by the fact that I never got to really sit down today.  I didn't really get great sleep last night so the combination of low sleep and a stressful day may have increased my inflammation overall.  While I'm at the complaining part of this post, I will say that my esophagus was in full spasm several times today too.  I don't have great management of the esophagus right now.  The medications for the esophagus are all heart medicines that relax cardiac muscle.  They also relax the smooth muscles of the esophagus.  I was on one that worked amazingly well until it led to EXTREME ankle swelling (sorry for yelling it).  The next one I tried didn't work at all.  Now I have a new one to try but apparently it gives everyone terrible headaches (the dr said that's how you know it's working - wtf?).  So I'm sort of holding off on that.  I've been getting by using the medicine I have for acute esophageal spasm.  Eating and drinking remain a challenge.

I used to have salad type things every day for lunch at school.  Now, I usually have a yogurt and some fruit.  Yogurt is so easy to digest and swallow.  I have eaten more yogurt in the past 2 months than ever before in my life.  I'm totally hooked on chobani.  Right now, I'm all about strawberry.

So I had big plans of making a new recipe for dinner so that I would have something to share here.  I guess that will have to wait.  I was so grateful that I had these little chicken pot pies left in the freezer from a few weeks ago.  I based them on this recipe from the Food Network by Melissa d'Arabian.  I never have followed the amounts - I just make large amounts of the chicken mixture and 2 packages of puff pastry.  Here are the amounts approximately that I have used:

1 large onion chopped
1 bunch celery chopped
4-6 carrots chopped
5 cloves of garlic
3T flour
1 C white wine
2 C chicken stock
2-3 T dijon mustard
1 C peas
2 packages of chicken breast, cooked and chopped small (I boiled the chicken)

Follow her recipe for cooking, deglazing the pan, etc.  You end up with a beautiful gravy surrounding chicken and veggies.  Roll out the puff pastry.  I made each turnover a rectangle about 4X6 inches then fold it over and seal the edges.  Freeze them like this, then you can just pop them out onto parchment paper and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  If you cook right away, you end up with a better puff pastry.  This is sort of a labor intensive meal because you have to boil and cook all that chicken, and then stuff the pastries.  It's worth doing on a weekend when you have time and making tons of it.  Trust me, you'll be glad to have these little babies in your freezer.