Spanakopita!

Spanakopita, besides being really fun to say, is Greek spinach pie.


We combined two recipes for our Spanakopita:
this one from Epicurious & this one from All Recipes.



We used:

2 lbs of fresh spinach
1 small yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup garlic feta cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg beaten
2 sticks of melted butter
1 package of phyllo dough (thawed)



First brown the onions & garlic in the olive oil. Clean & cut the spinach. Add to pan and cook for 4-5 minutes until wilted. Let cool completely & chop finely. (You may want to chop your spinach before you cook it but I think that would reduce the spinach even more.) This was 2 lbs of spinach, overflowing the pan, and it reduced down to about half a skillet full.


Mix the cheeses and egg together.

Combine with spinach mixture.
* The following excerpt is taken directly from Epicurous- as these directions are pretty much exactly what we followed and they are well written...

"Take 1 phyllo sheet from stack and arrange on a work surface with a long side nearest you (keeping remaining sheets covered) and brush with some butter. Top with another phyllo sheet and brush with more butter. Cut buttered phyllo stack crosswise into 6 (roughly 12- by 2 3/4-inch) strips.

Put a heaping teaspoon of filling near 1 corner of a strip on end nearest you, then fold corner of phyllo over to enclose filling and form a triangle. Continue folding strip (like a flag), maintaining triangle shape. Put triangle, seam side down, on a large baking sheet and brush top with butter. Make more triangles in same manner, using all of phyllo"Read More

Tip: Use a pizza cutter to cut your phyllo dough!

We like our Spanakopita more crusty than filling, so we used smaller amounts of filling and made more of them. This recipe can also be made into a large pie instead of the small handheld ones.

We had some left over phyllo dough so we buttered the layers and filled it with Nutella, cinnamon, and pecans for a yummy dessert!