Great High Iron Meal.

Fresh Spinach

I am an extremely picky eater, and getting sufficient amounts of iron in is always a task for me. So I came up with this dish which truly works like a charm, considering Spinach is one of the best sources of iron…remember Popeye? Not that it necessarily holds that much iron, it is just that the kind it holds is the sort your body can work with really well. Considering I add a whole bunch of other stuff to it, like Parsley, which is high in iron as well, only makes the meal more nutritious, and I love that it is so easy to make.

Spinach potato mash:

3-4 persons.

Spinach: (frozen is easiest) 1 kg

Potatoes: 6 mid-size. Diced

Sweet potatoes: 2 mid-size. Diced

Purple potatoes: 4 mid-size. Diced

Leek: 4-6 inches. Chopped

Onion: 1 mid-size. Chopped

Butter: 150-200 gr.

Milk: ¼ cup

Cheese: 100-200 gr (mix of sheep/goat/cow is nicest, but any other melt cheese will do) Grated

Parsley: 1 tablesp. (dried)

Pepper: 3-4 turns (2 knife points)

Salt: 2-3 teasp. (to taste)

Sweet chili sauce: (optional) 2 tablesp.

Peel your potatoes and cut them all about the same size. Cubes of about an inch and a half. Put them all together in a pan and just barely submerge in water. Add a teasp. of salt and a turn or two of your pepper mill, and boil until you can stab a fork into any of them and slide it right out again. Drain of water. Use a fork or hand masher (you can use an immersion blender, but I like it better when the potato mash isn’t all that smooth) to mash the potatoes with half the butter and milk until you have a lumpy paste.

Use a large skillet or wok for the Spinach. Melt the remainder of the butter (or use olive oil, if you prefer) and put in the frozen spinach. Mid-heat and frequent stirring will quickly defrost your spinach. Add your leek, onion and Parsley and keep stirring. The spinach will be best if you actually bake it, so increase the heat if you think it is going to slow. Add some Salt and pepper and the Chili sauce if you opted for that and when the spinach is completely defrosted, stir the cheese through it. Let it bake for a bit longer, until the cheese has melted properly and clumps through your spinach a bit. Turn off the heat.

Spoon your spinach mix on top of your potato mash and stir firmly until you have a colorful mash.

Serve with a small triangle of butter on top, allowing it to melt on the mash. I tend to serve this as a main dish, but you can serve it with a hamburger and/or a salad on the side.

High nutrition in one go

Sweet mixes

So, with there being little time, but a least a day or two in the week where you can at least spend a little time in the kitchen, I find this to be an ideal recipe that will easily see you through a week worth of meals for 3 to 4 people (or serve as a big batch for a party snack). You might think that, eeewww, you don’t like to eat the same thing over and over, but I’ll let you in on several preparation methods that’ll keep things interesting.

Warning:

There will be a lot of taste in your mix, but don’t worry about that until you’ve got your paste done for making the burgers; flour will take away a lot of the taste. As usual you can substitute with the flour of choice, but be prepared for a different taste with chickpea/buckwheat/corn flour. Best substitute would be rice flour, it won’t really alter the taste. As for potato flour (as in this recipe), if you can’t get it, get some instant potato mash, it works fine. As to the oats, don’t use raw ones, they’ll be too tough. Get the ones that have been precooked, as those for the quick and easy to fix oatmeal. As to the amounts, they are estimates, there are many factors involved in how much you need, so basically you add the flour/oats until you have a substance you can work with.

This recipe takes about an hour, but then you can just leave it in a bowl in the fridge and get out whatever amount you want when the mood suits you. What you’ll need is a skillet/wok, small cooking pan, blender/immersion blender—with tubular container, spoons, wooden ladle, plates a big bowl and something to deep fry in if that is the option you’re going for in the prep.

High nutritional value is the main thing here. Basically everything you need is in this mix, so if you’ve got a picky kid that doesn’t like eating veggies, or something, this is the way to sneak all the vits and mins in. Basically, if you can stand it, you could easily live quite healthily of this.

Veggie lentil/oat mix

List 1:

Cauliflower: 2 big rose-sized buds. Quartered

Carrot: 2 mid-size. Chopped (no more than ½ inch thick)

Sweet potato: 1 mid-size. Chopped

Leek: 4-5 inches. Chopped roughly.

Green beans: 4-6 chopped

Oats: 1 mug (150-200gr)

Broth cubes: 3-4

Salt: 1-2 teasp. (to taste)

Sugar: 1 teasp.

Pepper: 2 turns (2 knife points)

Paprika: 1 teasp.

Olive oil: 2-3 tablesp.

Sweet chili sauce: (optional)2 tablesp.

Water: 2 mugs. (1/3 liter)

List 2:

Lentils: 1 ½ mug (400 gr) boiled

Onion: 2 mid-size. Chopped

Red pepper: ½ chopped

Yellow pepper: ½ chopped

Italian pepper: 1 mid-size. Chopped

Zucchini: ½ chopped

(Dried herbs in this case. Double if using fresh, except for thyme and rosemary)

Parsley: 2 teasp.

Basil: 2 teasp.

Oregano: ½ teasp.

Rosemary: 1 pinch

Thyme: 1 pinch.

Dill: ½ teasp.

Olive oil: 3-4 tablesp.

Sweet chili sauce: (optional) 3 tablesp.

Tomato ketchup: 1 teasp.

Salt: 1-2 teasp. (to taste)

Sugar: 1 teasp.

Pepper: 2 turns (2 knife points)

Paprika: ½ teasp.

Nutmeg: 1 knife point (a pinch)

Sesame seeds: 1 teasp.

List 3:

Eggs: 2

Flour: 2-3 mugs (Approx 450 gr)

Potato flour: 2 mugs (Approx 400 gr)

Oats: 1-2 mugs (Approx 200 gr)

Last bit:

Breading: 1-2 mugs (Approx 200 gr)

Cornflakes: ½ mug (handful) crumbled

To start:

First put list 1 on a high temp burner in your cooking pan until it boils, then turn down the heat so it can simmer for the duration of the baking that follows. No particular sequence to how you handle list 1. Just throw them all in and boil them. Stir frequently, though, to prevent burning, and add more olive oil if you feel it sticks too much. Leave to simmer until it starts to become pasty/thick.

While nr 1 starts to heat, get going with your skillet/wok. Heat the olive oil a little, you’ll see it shift  on the bottom. Start with onions. Stir, allow for some crusts before you add your peppers, zucchini and then your boiled lentils. Stir, keep the heat up, and then add your seasoning…all of them, no particular sequence to it, although I tend to throw sugar and salt in early on.

Bake until your zucchini starts to get mushy, be carefully the lot doesn’t burn and stick to your bottom…it is something lentils like to do. Add some extra olive oil if you think it is going too fast and lower the heat a little.

Once both boiling and baking is done, turn off the heat and blender both components together. Careful, it will be hot. I used an immersion blender, so I had to do three rounds in a lemonade decanter to blender everything. The mix should look like a thick soup or porridge, having some of your veggies, like pepper and beans still floating in it like small colorful bits, makes it look more interesting, but you can keep blendering until it all one cane-sugar colored mush.

Carefully stir your raw eggs through the mix and then start adding the flours and oats from list 3 until you have a paste that will stand up straight on a spoon without dripping off. If you don’t have enough flour, add more, if you have too much, leave it.

Your basis is done.

Here come the different ways to finish them.

Breaded burgers: 4-6 Persons

The mix: 8-10 full tablesp.

(Optional: Add 2 tablesp. Cottage cheese to the mix.)

Breading/cornflakes: 1 mug. In a small bowl or on a plate.

Use two large spoons. Fill one to full capacity and slide on your corn and breading mix. Using the breading to keep your hands from getting too moist, keep patting the burger until you have a sturdy hamburger sized pattie. You should have enough for 6 burgers.

Deep fry at 190 degrees Celsius: 7-9 mins. Only two patties at a time to a deep golden brown.

Or

Fry in a skillet. Heat butter/sunflower seed oil and bake until the burgers look sturdy and nicely crusted. Similar to a normal burger, really.

Serve on the side of veggies and staple food as meat substitute, on a bun, or with a salad, or just as a snack with some mustard and if you like it spicy Tabasco or Sweet chili sauce.

Pita patties:  4-6 Persons

The mix: 8 tablesp.

Flour: 1-2 mugs (200 gr)

Olive oil: 1 tablesp.

Barley vinegar: 1 tablesp.

Mustard: 1 teasp.

Put your mix into a reasonably sized bowl, add the ingredients above, and start adding flour until you have a dough like substance (like for bread). Soft, but no longer sticky. Separate your dough into golf ball sized balls, and flatten until you have a large pattie about half an inch thick. Bake in a pre-heated skillet to a golden brown. Keep the heat mid-high, but regulate if you feel it goes to fast, or slow. There should be some hissing going on, but no vapors.

Once you’ve got your pitas baked, slice them open and serve with a potato/veggie salad inside, or greens with a dressing, a ratatouille, a spicy chili, or just with cheese. Plenty of ways.

Hushpuppies: 4-6 Person

The mix: 12-14 tablesp.

Cheese:  1 mug (150 gr) grated (I would go for a melt cheese but parmesan works too)

Breading: ½ - 1 mug

Stir your cheese through the mix and make small meatball-sized balls. Roll them through your breading until they look just right and then deep fry in 190 degrees Celsius for about 5 minutes. No more than 6-8 balls per fry. You should have around 18 of them, depending on the size you went for. Keep them small, though, otherwise the center might not be done.

Serve as party snacks with mustard, or other preferred dips, or serve with your pasta meal as a meat substitute.

As time passes, I will try this mix for different varieties, so check back every now and then if you’re curious.

Bon appétit.