Joy and Jackie

Joy owns the Monogram and gift shop at General Grant's Center in Crestwood.  She has been monograming our dress shirts for years and we've struck up a friendship over that time.  She's such a meticulous artist with her monograming and needle craft.  She came across my blog recently and began to read it and found the post from a couple of yeaers ago that I made from the cookbook "In the Kennedy Style", a book on some of the Kennedy white house dinners of the early 60's.  Joy is a true Jackie fan and has quite a collection of cookbooks relating to her life.  She has lent them to me to read.

The first thing that caught my eye was a spinach and ricotta tart form the Hammersmith Farm cookbook.  Hammersmith Farm is the Auchincloss family estate in Newport.  Hugh D Auchincloss Jr. was Jackie's stepfather.  Hammersmith Farm was the site for the Kennedy wedding reception in September of 1953.  I had alot of spinach from farmer's market from one of my favorite farmers.  It was his first weekend back since last fall.  His spinach was so sweet and tasty.

1 pie crust
1 pound ricotta
3 beaten eggs
small onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup grated shaarp cheese
dash pepper
1/2 tsp basil
3 tbs flour
dash nutmeg
package frozen spinach (thawed and drained) I used fresh

Saute in butter spinach, onion, pepper, salt, and basil.  Mix well.  Add eggs to ricotta and sharp cheese, nutmeg and flour.  Mix all ingredients into one bowl until smooth, and then spread into pie shell.  Top with 1 cup sour cream.  Be sure to spread it to edge of pie crust.  Bake 40-45 minutes.  This combination is great as a filling for lasagna.

The pie sort of got eaten before I could get a good picture, this is the day old picture, when I reheated it for lunch-tender, fresh Spring spinach, cheese, and sour cream-what could be more delicious?