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About this time, spinach bolts, sugar snap plants turn yellow, and tomatoes finally start to show promise. And luckily, even our shady plot is doing the same – a few things refused to come up, but for the most part it has kept my gardening needs and tastebuds fulfilled. It is pretty funny to find a new volunteer sunflower each week – I can only guess the last caretakers loved their sunflowers through the end of the season. They’re tenacious, and take no prisoners when it comes to battling for sunlight. That means most of them have ended up in the compost pile, though I left a couple just for the hell of it.

I should point out, that the cilantro planted at Sam’s request (I completely dislike cilantro) has gone to seed without being used. (Strike that for next year’s plot!) It’s a weird sort of power to be the primary gardener and meal determiner, without having to be the cook. However, I’ll harvest a little coriander (the seeds of the cilantro plant), as they wouldn’t hurt for the occasional recipe that uses the spice.

The tomatoes are starting to turn red, though all the fruits are much smaller than at other plots in the garden. While I am tempted to blame this solely on the lack of sun, neighbors with walls-of-water have tomato plants and fruits of tremendous size. That may need to be a change for next year – Colorado’s shorter growing season requires more gardener intervention of garden conditions.

The shade, however, dominates the plot – meaning that we are getting the most of (and most out of) the greens I planted in huge amounts. We still have plenty of collard greens, but most of the rainbow chard and all of the spinach was recently used in our Spanakopita:

Spanakopita

2 lbs. fresh spinach leaves

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

½ cup chopped fresh dill

2 cups finely chopped green onions

1 ½ tsp. fine grey sea salt

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 cups chopped onion

¼ tsp. coarse ground black pepper

½ lb. feta cheese, crumbled (traditionally made from sheeps milk, goat is also good)

14 filo leaves (usually sold frozen, thaw thoroughly!)

¾ cup clarified butter (ghee), melted

1. Wash and clean the spinach. Discard the stems. Drain and cut the leaves into shreds.


2. Combine the spinach, parsley, dill, green onions, and grey sea salt in a bowl. Let stand for 15 minutes, then press out all of the liquid.


3. Heat the extra-virgin olive oil in a skillet and sauté the 3 cups of chopped onions until soft and transparent. Add the spinach mixture from step 2 and sauté for a few more minutes. Add the feta cheese and black pepper.


4. Place each of 7 filo leaves in a buttered 10” x 17” x 2” baking pan, brushing each leaf with melted clarified butter. Add the spinach mixture from step 3, spread into a thick layer then add remaining filo leaves, again brushing each leaf with melted clarified butter. Cut into 3” x 3” pieces with a sharp knife.


5. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown. From greysalt.com

I should note a couple variations on this recipe…for one, we use regular kosher salt – and the washing, tearing, and salting of the greens takes a significant period of time. It’s OK to change the amount of dill, green onion, and use regular butter instead of ghee. However, finding a cooperative filo dough is a challenge. We have yet to find one that works well, although we crudely work with it before it is thoroughly thawed. (It probably would work better if you moved the filo dough to the top shelf of the fridge in the morning, and to the counter at the start of cooking). Be patient with it, and liberal with the butter – it doesn’t want to fold nicely into the dish like you might expect of other doughs.

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