Yummy Greek Food

If there is one thing you need to make, it is Spanakopita! I have wanted to make it ever since my mother bought me a lovely cookbook.  I love Phyllo dough, and spinach, so I knew this would be a win-win.  I'm not sure how much faith I actually had in it though, because on the side I made Pete and I BLT's in case it came out gross.  Do you ever make a back up plan in case a new recipe doesn't work out?  I have honestly only ruined maybe 3 dinners in my life.  One being the pizza from the other day, and another time I tried to make my own pizza dough... yuck.  The third time I will just toss in there because I'm sure theres something else that came out gross or horrible.  I think cooking is easy to save.  Its the baking I need to worry about.

Anyway, I began by heating up a pan and chopping a bag of spinach.  I like to use kitchen scissors instead of knives sometimes, because scissors are easier to use and reduce the chance you will cut your fingers off.

When that was finished cooking (be careful to not over cook it - you don't want it soggy) I threw the spinach in a big bowl, and then melted the butter and cooked the chopped onion in the pan.  When that was done, I added that to the big bowl, along with the eggs, cottage cheese, crumbled feta, spices, and flour.

I mixed everything together, melted some more butter in a small pot, then began the Phyllo dough. I halved the original recipe to a 9x9 pan.  First, I took a kitchen pastry brush and painted some butter on the bottom of the pan, and I took one Phyllo sheet at a time and layered it in the pan.  Because I used a smaller pan, I just folded the sheets over, so one sheet = 2 layers. After each sheet (every 2 layers) I painted on a little butter.  After 8 layers I spread about 1/3 the mixture, then 8 more layers, 1/3 mixture, then 6 layers and the rest of the mixture.  Then I just kept layering and buttering until all of the sheets were used up.

When I make Baklava I always cut it before I bake it, but this time I didn't because I was unsure about the cheeses and spinach inside and didn't want it to be a big ole mess.

I baked it on 375 for exactly 45 minutes, and let it cool for about 2 minutes before cutting into it.  It was pretty amazing. The pictures just wont do it justice, because they were taken at night from my camera phone.  It was just so simple and so delish... you should dooo ittt!



Not as messy at it looks... I promise!!!

Spanakopita
10 oz chopped spinach
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp butter + more for melting
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs + 1 egg white
1 tbsp flour
basil, oregano, salt, pepper
1/2 lb Phyllo Dough

Back-up dinner plan... BLT and Veggies