Spinach Sauteed with Garlic, Dried Figs, and Honey

Here's a delicious side dish recipe for sauteed spinach, straight from Emril Lagasse and the Food Network website. Bam! I didn't do much fiddling with it, other than to add a sprinkling of hot pepper flakes to give it a little heat and a handful of chopped almonds for some crunch.  It is both sweet and savory. Besides being delicious, it's also fast and nutritious.  Makes a nice side dish.  This recipe serves four as a side dish, maybe two if this is the main dinner feature.

Spinach Sauteed with Garlic, Dried Figs, and Honey
2-3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup finely sliced dried figs
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1 pound baby spinach (or grown up spinach, chopped)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

Add the olive oil and garlic to a large saute pan (one that can hold the pound of spinach). Place on medium heat, stirring as the pan starts to heat up and the garlic begins to cook.  Cook for about 2-3 minutes, stirring often and taking care that the garlic doesn't burn.  Add the figs and the broth and continue to cook, stirring, until the broth reduces considerably.  This will soften the figs and create a sweet, thickened broth.  Add the spinach, salt, black pepper, and hot pepper flakes and cook, tossing the spinach to wilt it. You may have to add spinach in batches as it wilts so that there's room in the pan.  Continue cooking until all of the spinach is wilted.  Remove from heat, taste seasonings and add more salt, pepper or hot pepper flakes if desired. Place in a serving bowl and drizzle with honey.  Just before serving, sprinkle the chopped almonds on top. 

Feta Spinach Pizza WITH HONEY!

The joke here at SteffesWood Apiary is that if you stand still long enough, someone will drizzle honey on you.  We put honey on everything!  While honey and pizza may not seem like a likely combination, just a little bit of honey on this kind of Greek-y (and geeky) white pizza  marries well with the salty feta cheese.  The inspiration for this pizza came from a flatbread recipe on Epicurious that uses artichokes and prosciutto. I didn't have any of that, so I sauteed garlic, some sweet red pepper, spinach and black olives.  If I had had kalamata olives, I would have used them instead. On the spur of the moment, I invited a friend over to share it with me and she pronounced it "good."  After a few glasses of wine, we each had another slice and I think it was even better at room temperature (though the wine may have had something to do with that)!

Feta Spinach Pizza with Honey
3 cloves garlic, chopped
an ungodly amount of olive oil (say about 1/4 cup)
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1/2 sweet red pepper, sliced thin
2 cups fresh spinach (chopped a bit if not baby spinach)
1/4 cup black olives, sliced 
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon honey
frozen pizza dough, thawed (Need a pizza dough recipe?  Try Mark Bittman's, which I featured in a recipe for dessert calzones a few years ago.)

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. (Home pizza enthusiasts suggest heating the oven for at least 30 minutes if not an hour.)  If you have a pizza stone or steel, put it in the oven to heat up.  If not, bake the pizza on a cookie sheet (won't be as crispy, but it'll still be good).

Place the garlic in a large saute pan, pour the olive oil over it and saute on medium high until the garlic just begins to sizzle.  Sprinkle the red pepper flakes and add the sweet red pepper.  Saute for a few minutes more, turning down the heat if necessary so that the garlic doesn't burn.  Add the fresh spinach, cover the pan, and remove from the heat.  When the spinach is fully wilted, toss in the olives.  You might want to add a little bit of salt and black pepper, too--but remember that the feta adds a lot of saltiness if you do.

Roll out the pizza dough.  If you're using a pizza stone or steel, place the dough on parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet without sides.  If you like, turn up the edges to keep the toppings from spilling over. Prick the dough in several places with a fork.  Slide the dough with the parchment paper (but without toppings!) into the hot oven and bake for 3 minutes.  Remove the dough from the oven and set the parchment paper aside.  The dough may puff up a bit. If so, just tamp it down with a fork. Spread the spinach/pepper/olive/garlic topping all over the partially baked dough.  Crumble the feta cheese on top.  With a tablespoon held high, drizzle the honey all over.  Return the pizza with the toppings back to the hot oven and bake for 5 to 10 minutes more, until the underside of the crust is well-browned and the feta has melted a bit.  If you don't have a pizza stone, then you can place the pizza on a cookie sheet.  You might still want to bake the dough for 3 minutes before putting on the toppings.  

This made one medium pizza, plenty for two people.

 

Spinach Orange Salad with Honey-Sesame Dressing

This is another great recipe from the Vegetarian Times.  The dressing also makes a nice dipping sauce for spring rolls or Asian dumplings or pot sticklers.  Though it seems as if spring really has sprung in these parts, this is a nice winter salad that can help to chase the winter blues away.

Spinach Orange Salad with Honey-Sesame Dressing
1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped
6 cups baby spinach
2 oranges, peeled and sectioned
1 or 2 very thin slices of red onion, cut in half and broken apart
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
Arrange the spinach, orange slices and red onion on a platter.  Sprinkle with almonds on top.  Drizzle about 1/4 cup of the dressing and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Honey-Sesame Dressing
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
Blend honey, vinegar, soy sauce and red pepper flakes in a food processor.  With the processor running, drizzle in the oils and keep the processor running a minute or so more to emulsify.  Unused dressing can be kept in the refrigerator for about two weeks.

Honey Cannoli! A Dessert Calzone!

New York Times food writer, Melissa Clark's "A Good Appetite" column never lets me down.  Last week, she  offered several recipes for calzones using Mark Bittman's pizza dough recipe, one of which included this Honey Cannoli Dessert Calzone I made tonight.  It's made with fresh ricotta, which Clark demonstrates in a video on the NY Times website.  Sound complicated?  Not at all! Fresh ricotta can be ready in less than 30 minutes depending on how long it takes the milk to boil.  If that sounds like a lot of work, consider (as Clark points out in her video) that fresh ricotta is cheaper than store bought, tastes so much better and is fun to make!

I start by offering the Honey Cannoli Dessert Calzone recipe with photos.  Read on for recipes for pizza dough, fresh ricotta and a delightful spinach/red pepper calzone that Robert and I made last night with some of this dough.

HONEY CANNOLI DESSERT CALZONE
Preheat oven to 500 degrees (yes! 500!)
Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly grease

Take 1/4 of Mark Bittman's pizza dough recipe (see below--make the whole recipe, divide into 4ths and use one ball; freeze the rest if you're not making any other dishes)  Pull/roll the dough into a 6 to 7 inch circle.


In a bowl, combine:
3/4ths cup fresh ricotta (see below for recipe)
3-4 tablespoons honey (we used summer honey)
1-2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.





Spread the ricotta mixture on one half of the dough. Lightly wet the edge and fold the dough in half, covering the ricotta mixture.

Crimp the edges, sealing well.  Brush lightly with olive oil.  Bake for about 15 minutes until the calzone is well-browned and puffed.  Let cool for 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and drizzle with more honey. Split and serve.  One calzone generously serves two for dessert.

Mark Bitmann's Pizza Dough Recipe
3 cups all-purpose flour (or bread flour)
1 teaspoon fast-rising yeast (2 teaspoons if you want to speed things up)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
Put the flour, yeast, salt and oil in a food processor and pulse to mix well.  With the processor running, slowly add 1 cup of water through the feed tube, and process until the mixture forms a ball, which should be sticky.  Using flour or oiled hands, form the dough into a ball and let rest at room temperature 1 to 2 hours (or, do as I did, which was wrap the dough well and refrigerate overnight; return the dough to room temperature before proceeding with recipe).  For the honey cannoli recipe,  divide the dough into four equal pieces and use one for the honey calzone. (You could wrap and freeze the others for later, or double the recipe if you want more servings.)

FRESH RICOTTA 
2 quarts whole milk (1/2 gallon)
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

In a large pot, stir the milk, cream and salt together and bring to a rolling boil over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent the milk from scorching.  Meanwhile, prepare a sieve or colander by lining it with four layers of cheese cloth, leaving a big overhang. Place the colander over a large pot.

When the milk/cream mixture comes to a rolling boil, stir in the lemon juice, reduce the heat and simmer just until curds start to form.  If you want firmer ricotta with big curds, cook for about a minute more.  Pour the mixture into the cheese-cloth lined colander and let drain until it's the consistency you like.  The longer it drains, the drier the curds will be.  That's it!  Place the ricotta in a container and refrigerate--it should keep for at least a week.  (For a simple and divine dessert, try this drizzled with some honey and cinnamon.)

BONUS RECIPE!  SPINACH, RED PEPPER CALZONE
Preheat oven to 500 degrees (yes! 500!)  Line a cookie sheet with foil and lightly grease.
1-2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for brushing calzone
3 or 4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 sweet red pepper, diced in 1/4 inch dice
1/2 pound fresh spinach, cleaned well
1/2 of Bittman's pizza dough recipe (see above)
1 cup fresh ricotta
3 ounces mozzarella, sliced in 1/4 inch slices
tomato or pizza sauce for serving on the side

Heat oil in a skillet add garlic, sprinkle with a little salt and lightly saute, being careful not to burn.  Add diced red pepper and saute for a few minutes.  Add spinach and cook until it's wilted.

Pull and roll the pizza dough until it is about 12 inches in diameter. Spread one half of the dough with ricotta, leaving about 1/2 inch margin to seal the dough.  Top with the spinach/pepper mixture (draining if it's very watery) and then with the mozzarella slices.  Fold the dough over, wet the edges and crimp and seal well. Transfer the calzone to the prepared cookie sheet and place in preheated oven for 20-30 minutes.  The calzone should be very brown--even a little darker on top.  Remove from oven and cool for about 5 or 10 minutes before slicing into it.  Makes two very generous servings for a main course.