Hail the humble Spaetzle.

Every Thursday, Maria goes to her Belly Dancing Class.

She is in an advanced class now, she doesn’t get home until 7:30 at the earliest. It’s late and she’s tired, and I’m usually worn out myself – this was a long day for me as well – and so I’ve come up with one or two dishes that are simple and quick, but healthy and good both for late digestion and energy.

A sort of comfort dish. I am, as you know, very fond of the new Spaetzle, a kind of German noodle that has been re-invited by an enterprising family start-up (Jules And Marty Irion of Arlington, Vt.) called the Vermont Spaetzle Company.

They just started shipping their Spaetzles.

It took Jules seven years to come up with a gluten-free, lighter, and highly adaptable kind of noodle. I find this Spaetzle has transformed a lot of my cooking. It’s light and goes with so many other things. It is, I gather, different from most traditional Spaetzles.

One caution: The Spaetzle is not naturally flavorful. You have to help it along.

I relate to the housewives of yore, because in some limited and very different ways, I am one.

I do the cooking and shopping in our family, Maria does the heavy lifting and repairs around the house. She deals with the Big Men In Trucks, they quickly read me as useless.

I don’t ever have to give her a bucket list – and I would not dare – she has one in her head.

Neither of us is into cleaning, we have a helper who comes regularly to help us with the dog hair and mud.

This partial gender flop fits both of us, I am working to be more creative and experimental in my cooking (and thus, shopping) and this winter I’m making some strides. She actually misses my meals when I can’t cook. And when Maria doesn’t like something, she makes her very special grimace, she can’t help it.

Those of us who labor in the kitchen are rarely appreciated.

Tonight, I made my Turkey/Sprouts/Spaetzle dinner, I started cooking it about 20 minutes after Maria phoned to say she was on my way, and 15 minutes later, it was done. I took a cup of Spaetzles and sauteed them in a pan with virgin olive oil and a small slab of butter.

I took two lean and fresh ground turkey burger patties and cooked them in a separate pan, stirring and chopping until they were in small and relatively dry bits. I squirted some ketchup on the turkey to give it some flavor and added some Basil chopped up from a friend’s garden.

(I drain them also, no grease allowed in my meals.) When the turkey bits were cooked, I put them in a calendar and toss everything into one thing.

It takes about six or seven minutes to saute the Spaetzles, I cook them until they are brown and slightly crisp, which I think is when they are at their best.

I drain them also before mixing them in with the turkey. I add two tablesoons of parmesan cheese ( I use different cheeses)  and add three tablespoons of pesto. I also add my favorite flavoring tool, vegetable sprouts all chopped up in bits. It’s healthy and a bit crunchy. It adds some very lovely flavor.

Spaetzles go best with something, and the number of things they go well with just keeps growing for me. They seem to absorb flavor and add to it.

When the Spaetzle and turkey are tossed together with the sprouts, I add a dash of salt, mix everything up and serve it. The meal is healthy on its own, but it also doesn’t leave a heavy feeling in the stomach. Some foods just feel good, this is one of them.  I don’t favor meals that hang in the stomach for hours, I would make a lousy Italian, and didn’t thrive as a Jew either.

I like light foods. Eight o’clock is late to eat and I don’t like to make heavy food at that hour.

By 10 p.m., I’m usually done writing and up watching Vera or some other British mystery, they know how to do it.

The Spaetzles that Julie invented – it took her seven years to come up with her own recipe – are versatile and they tend to take on the flavor of the things they are cooked with. I cook them with Kale, Chard, Broccoli, lean hamburger and turkey, and I can imagine adding a number of different vegetables as we move towards the Spring.

The Spatzle, as the Germans spelled it, literally means “little sparrows.” Technically, it’s a type of pasta made with fresh eggs, flour, salt and water. My Spaetzles are made differently – no wheat flour, among other things.

Spaetzles were first found in the foods of southern German and Austria.

Why “little sparrow?”  Before mechanized cooking, pasta was shaped by hand or with a spoon and the results resembled Spatzen, the plural of Spatz, meaning “sparrows.” Spatzles are first recorded in the 18th century, although some medieval illustrations place the pasta at an even earlier date.

This Spaetzle/ground turkey meal is best in the winter, I think, although the opening of the Farm Stands may be too tempting for me to pass up, Spaetzle wise. They aren’t heavy,  you can cook up as many or as few as works for you.

This is a simple meal to cook, even for me, and Maria – a picky eater – loves the taste of it. So do I.

I credit the humble Spaetzle with enriching my cooking options, especially in the heart of a cold winter, where a warm and nutritious meal that is easy to cook is a gift.

I am the most humble of chefs, and we work well together, the Spaetzle and me. So do the grain and wheat pizzas, and the scallops.

And yes, I love writing the name Spaetzle, it makes me smile. My grandmother spoke Yiddish, a derivation of German, I wonder if she knew of the Spaetzle, it sounds like something she would say. My interest in them might be something in my subconscious.

I never heard of a Spaetzle until a few months ago, and now I make sure the freezer is stocked with them and cook with them at least once a week. They make up half of every Belly Dancing Night dinner, something I would never have imagined doing  just a couple of years ago.

This what I love about life. You just never know where it is going to go.