Chickweed Pastries

Spring is springing lusciously everywhere and it's been a cold one in our area, so all the green and flowers (flowers!!) are so wonderful.

 A few years ago, I learned that chickweed is edible and available in my back yard. We never spray any pesticides or herbicides in our back yard because we have food growing there as well as children running amuck. I did plant some spinach seeds, but in the meantime, I made these spinach pastries by subbing in chickweed from the backyard. 

These pastries come from Extending the Table, which is a companion book to the cookbook I use the most, More with Less. Extending the Table has recipes from cuisines and people all over the world, many of them with stories and insights about food justice and simplicity. The spinach pastry recipe comes from the West Bank, from the Bishara and Selwa Awad family, and they are delicious. Simple ingredients and technique, yet the resulting pastries are definitely from another place and tradition. I love that.

This time, I had two balls of dough left and no filling, so I quickly grabbed some leftover curry from the fridge and made two half-moon pies with it to distinguish from the chickweed filling. Grated cheese would work well also, and I think I have done peanut butter and jelly under duress, too. I served them with home-canned tomato soup. The pastries make nice picnic food, and aren't we all eager to get out into the warm air?

Spinach (Chickweed) Pastries
Combine in bowl:
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
about 1 cup all-purpose flour
Knead a few minutes until nice and elastic. This is a lovely dough, not sticky, purely pleasurable to knead. Cover and allow to rise for 1 hour, give or take. Meanwhile, make the filling.
Mix together: 
4 cups packed, chopped spinach or chickweed, fine to include minced stems
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 tsp. pepper
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground cumin
2 Tbsp. olive oil
The dough doesn't necessarily need to rise, so when an hour is up, divide it into 18-20 balls. Roll a ball very thin (I find that flour is not necessary here). Put a heaping 1/4 cup filling in middle. Bring 2 edges together to form a cone shape, then the third side to form a triangle. Pinch seams tightly. Place on greased on silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake 350 for 15-17 minutes, until golden brown. Serve hot or warm. The recipe says you can freeze some unbaked pastries to bake later, but I have never done that.