Ruth Goldston's Spinach Whatever

I never know what to call this - spinach cake? kugel? casserole? Its native name is Presnac, a Slavic dish rich in cheese. Ellen Frankel shared Ruth's recipe and it quickly became a standby. Here is what Ruth reports about its derivation:

Anyway, the story of the Prjesnac (pronounced pree YEZ nahts) recipe is that my stepmother found it in the newspaper in Buffalo many years ago (early 70's perhaps) and tried it and it immediately became a family favorite of ours. Both of my parents were born and raised in what was then Yugoslavia (one in Serbia, one in Croatia) and we all wish the recipe came from one of them.

Nosing around online, I found other versions but none of them have spinach.

As for the name of the dish, Prijesnac: I have seen it spelled prijesnac, presnac, priyesnats, prjsnac. It would originally have been written in Cyrillic, so with translations into the Latin alphabet, and regional differences in dialect, we have many spellings.

Abba thinks of this as an acceptable side dish, but the rest of us like it as a rich main dish. It's good cold, so I often put a 2" square in Zach's lunch and felt like a virtuous mother, feeding my child spinach, cheese, eggs, milk, and whole wheat, all in each dense bite. It is very forgiving. You could use mashed potato or cooked pasta instead of the flour, for example.

1/4 c. butter

1 c. flour - can be part or all whole wheat

1 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

2 eggs

1 c. milk (skim is fine)

1 lb grated cheese - any mix is fine. I often use lowfat cheddar for part of it, since this dish is so rich.

1 lb. frozen spinach, thawed (two 10 oz. pkgs is not too much.)

Preheat oven to 375.

While the oven is preheating, put the slab of butter in a large pyrex dish or a sprayed 1/4 sheet pan (it fits in the Breville) to melt.

Mix all other ingredients.

Take out the pan with the now melted butter and mix all the ingredients right in the pan.

Bake 30-35 minutes until browned.

Becca likes to eat this for breakfast the next morning!