Spanakopita

After a lovely break in Sydney where we dined on some glorious but very meaty dishes, I am ready for vegetables! I was going to make filo triangles but with the weather being so hot and the children being rather unhelpful I decided to make the pie version - Spanakopita.

Meal of January 24th - Spanakopita (Cheese and spinach pie)

1. Wilt a big bunch of English spinach in a frying or saucepan.

2. Beat 4 eggs and add about 350g of ricotta cheese, 150g of Danish feta, 1/4 cup of parmesan and 1/4 cup of tasty cheese. Mix this all up and add salt and pepper. You could also add some fresh dill here but I had none... about a handful chopped would be good.

3. Saute a cup and 1/2 of chopped spring onions in a little olive oil.

4. Drain the spinach and chop roughly, then add this and the spring onions to the cheese mixture and combine well.

The next part requires speed if doing this on a 33 deg day as I did! Cover the exposed filo pastry with a damp t/towel.

5. Melt around 100g of butter with a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a small saucepan.

6. Grease a rectangle casserole dish with the butter/oil then place a sheet of filo over the dish. Using a pastry brush, cover the pastry with butter and add another sheet. Continue this until you have 8 sheets of filo, all buttered in your dish.

7. After the 8th sheet, fill with the spinach and cheese mixture and fold the edges in.

8. Place another sheet of filo on top of the cheese and spinach mixture then brush with butter and repeat until there is another 8 (or 9 if your 3.5 year old is counting) sheets all buttered on top.

9. Trim the edges and brush with butter. Score the top of the pie into diamonds and sprinkle with water to keep the edges from curling.

10. Place the pie in a preheated oven at 200 deg cel for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180 for around 30 minutes or until it's golden on top and has risen or puffed up.

11. This should be served with a garden salad but we are totally out of salad until tomorrow so we just had slices of cucumber!

The verdict: M ate a big bowl full and then picked most of the pastry off my husband and my serves! A seemed to like the spinach and cheese more than the pastry which surprised me but she ate a lot too. My husband ate a HUGE serve so it obviously passed the authenticity test. A brief warning though... this is a messy meal to eat, especially if you have small kids!

Happy Eating!