Ypsi Cooks

My mom makes “spinach brownies.” I never thought twice about this name until I mentioned them to a friend who responded, “spinach brownies?!?” with distinct disgust. Then I realized that the name doesn't really match the item. Yes, it's baked in a 9×13 and cut up like a brownie, but it has nothing to do with chocolate. So I started cutting them across the diagonal, calling them “spinach-cheese triangles,” but that conjures up ideas of layers of phyllo, herbed spinach and feta. Yet another misnomer. We still don't have a satisfactory name, but in the end, who cares what you call them, they are easy and delicious, and whenever we serve them everyone wants the recipe.We made them for my sister-in-law's bridal shower and she requisitely asked for the recipe. A few weeks later I still hadn't gotten her the recipe when I asked her what she wanted to make them for (we had alway made them for parties and such, not as an every day food). “Dinner.” Huh. It was a revelation: of course this is good dinner fare: cheese, spinach, flour, egg, what's not to love.

So where does veggie cake come in? Well, we had a crisper drawer full of local kale that needed to be used, but I had to cook it to mimic the frozen spinach we normally use, so why not caramelize some onions while I'm at it. I got out a really large onion, and chopped it up fairly small (Eli eats finely chopped, caramelized onions without protest even though he claims not to like onion) and threw it in a pan with a little olive oil and salt. Once it started to brown, I tossed in the finely chopped kale and let that cook down a good bit. While I was at it, I thought I'd put some thin slices of tomato on top. Heck, why not go all out and add a little shredded carrot to the batter, and the chives we just cut from the garden, some dried basil, plus a little brewers yeast for added nutritional value. So the “veggie” makes sense but “cake?” Well, Eli loves cake, and though he is not gullible enough to believe my concoction was dessert cake, I thought he might be able to get behind “veggie cake.” He ate 3 servings. What's in a name? Everything, apparently.

1 c flour
1 t salt
1 t baking powder
heaping 1/4 t cayenne pepper
2 eggs
1 c milk
3 TBS melted butter/margarine
_ c chopped onion
8-12 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
16 oz Package chopped spinach drained

The recipe is VERY forgiving, but I like to sift together the dry ingredients just to make sure the baking powder and cayenne are evenly distributed. Spread in a greased 9” X 13” pan. Add an extra egg if you're in the mood and bake a bit longer.
Bake 40 minutes @ 350º F

Some other things to try: replace some spinach with artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, basil, oregano and replace the cheddar with parmesan or asiago. Or maybe try leeks and emmentaler.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.