This Paleo Spinach Cake recipe is perfect for Passover. We like it so much though, that we eat it all year round. This easy recipe is made with 7 healthy ingredients –spinach, eggs, pine nuts, currants, garlic, oil, and salt. It’s so simple that you can throw it together in just a few minutes.
Our weekly CSA share kicked in recently and we received a ton of fresh organic spinach! For those of you who aren’t familiar, “CSA” stands for community supported agriculture. This relatively new socioeconomic concept changes the way food is produced, distributed, and sold, creating small scale closed markets for farmers in which the consumer participates in the risk and rewards of the farm.
One of the great benefits of the CSA is receiving produce the day it is picked. CSA’s also give farmers more time to do what they do best –grow food. By cutting out the middle man, farmers receive more money for their crops, and save time by not having to market produce to stores. Earlier this year my family purchased a “share” in this season’s crop from Abbondanza. We receive organic vegetables straight from the farm each week during the harvest months.
The bounty of our farm share sends me rummaging through my recipes in search of culinary solutions to vegetable overload. The biggest issue has been spinach. What to do with the several pounds of spinach crowding out the other greens in the veggie drawer of my fridge? Spinach cake of course!
Spinach Cake
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds spinach, thoroughly washed, leave stems on if they are not tough
- 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
- 1 cup pine nuts
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup currants
- 2 large eggs, whisked
- 1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
Instructions
- Wilt spinach in a large covered saucepan over low heat (do not add water)
- Drain and cool, then squeeze moisture out of spinach
- Place spinach in food processor and pulse until coarsely blended, then set aside
- In an 9 inch cast iron skillet, warm 3 tablespoons oil, add pine nuts and sauté until golden brown
- Add garlic to pan and sauté an additional minute
- Add currants to pan and sauté an additional minute
- In a large bowl, combine pine nuts mixture, blended spinach, eggs, and salt
- Spread mixture into a greased 7 x 11 inch baking dish
- Bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes
- Serve
This spinach recipe is based on Claudia Roden’s Tortino di Spinaci. She is my all time favorite cookbook author. I often hear Roden speaking about the history of Jewish food on NPR. She is basically a food historian, as well as a culinary genius.
I hope you enjoy Paleo Spinach Cake as much as we do. Here are some of my other Paleo Passover recipes:
susan says
i made this for a gluten free dinner party and this was DIVINE! i definitely want to make this again and again!
elana says
Hi Ninafur,
Thanks for stopping by and letting me know how your experimentation went! I really like to hear about results when people tinker.
Shehecheyanu is my younger son’s favorite prayer (mine too), so thanks for sharing with me that you used it to bless the spinach cake.
I bet the sunflower seed version will be delicious, please let me know how it turns out if you make it for the nut-allergy cousins.
Shana Tova!
Elana
Ninufar says
L’Shana Tova Elana and guests!
I can report to you and to ~M that indeed, using cranberries instead is very yummy. Even with the corner-cutting version I made, I hesitate to admit, with frozen spinach from parts unknown. Also w/only 2 T of oil (ran out).
This is the first Elana’s Pantry recipe I have tried, and I said a little Shehecheyanu (sp?) over it. I will probably try to make a version w/sunflower seeds (cheaper and okay for my nut-allergy cousins) as well.
Not only is tonight’s edition delicious, it was pretty easy to make. And maybe other readers can relate to this — after years of replacing this or that ingredient, it was exciting to cook something that was completely cooked in the time stated in the recipe, woo-hoo!
Thanks for sharing your work…
elana says
Sheryl,
Thanks for stopping by with this great report! I really appreciate it and I’m glad the kids liked the cake.
Elana
Sheryl says
I made a completely gluten free Rosh Hashanah dinner. The spinach pie was loved by one and all. It was even better cold the next day. My kids have asked me to make it again so they can take it in their lunch.
elana says
Alexa -Thanks for your kind words!
Maggie – Yes, the pine nuts are just delicious.
Maggie says
Great looking dish! I love how perfectly toasted the pine nuts got.
Alexa says
This recipe looks delightful. Just the type of dish I love to eat. Thank you for sharing.
elana says
Tara -Thanks for stopping by and for your feedback I really appreciate it!
Tara says
Love this blog!!! Great looking recipe!!! I love spinach!