SPINACH BALLS WITH CHEESE

We did this some weeks ago to use spinach leaves that we had seeded months ago in a tiny corner of the garden. As we did not pick them in August the leaves were far too tough to be eaten on their own.  The children really liked this dish and it should be even better with properly tender spinach leaves.

You need:
- 500 gr spinach
- 2 handfuls of pinenuts
- salt
- a teaspoon of parsley
- 2 spring onions
- 2 eggs
- salt
- a tablespoon of milk
- two tables spoons of plain flour
- two table spoons of chickpea flour
- olive oil

for the sauce:
- 250 gr creme fraiche
- 50 gr milk
- 200 gr of grated cheese (you can also do this with blue cheese, but since I am happy every time my children agree to eat spinach I though adding the blue cheese would be pushing my luck a bit)
- salt and pepper

Clean the spinach leaves. Put them in pan with a lid with a tablespoon of oil and wait until they are wilted (turning them around a couple of times). This should take 2-3 minutes.  Take them off the pan and put them on kitchen paper or a clean tea towel twisting them as much as possible so that you get rid of all the moisture. Put the leaves in a food processor with the parsley, spring onions and pine nuts and pulse them 5 or 6 times. Then add the eggs, milk, flours and salt (not too much as the sauce has the saltiness of the cheese) and let the mixture rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Make little balls (the size does not matter much) with the mixture. Heat a generous amount of olive oil  and fry the balls on all sides until they are golden ( one or two minutes per side). Take them off the oil and reserve.

Separately mix all the ingredients for the sauce and heat it until the cheese dissolves. Put the balls into the sauce and serve ( you can also make a light béchamel for this, but it will make the dish heavier)

By far the most successful way to get my children to eat spinach.


ROSEHIP SYRUP

We picked a lot of rosehips last week and have made syrup with them. It tastes great and it is meant to have a lot of vitamin C as well (provided you can close your eyes to the enormous amount of sugar this has…which is pretty difficult as 'the whole world' is now talking about sugar ... and I agree with 'the whole world' on this)

You need:

- 1 Kg of rosehips
- 1 l of water
- caster sugar
- pectine
- sterilised bottles/jars

Clean the rose hips and boil them in 1 l of water for 25 minutes. Then strain the liquid through a muslin cloth (a paper coffee filter will do as well). Measure the remaining liquid and add 300 g of sugar and 40 ml of pectin for each 500 ml of liquid. Bring back to the boil for 10 minutes and decant in the sterilised jars (see the way to sterilise jars in any of our jam recipes)