Spankopita

Want something maybe a little different to go with your Sunday supper? Try spanakopita. It looks much more difficult than it actually is, tastes wonderful, and looks pretty darn cool. Don’t do Sunday supper? Make this anyway. Don’t have enough feta or spinach? Do what I did a sub in some yummy chard and ricotta. It will all be delicious in the end. Even cold for breakfast.

Spanakopita from The New Moosewood Cookbook:

Makes about 8 servings

2 Tb. olive oil plus a little more for the pan

2 c. minced onion

½ tsp. salt

1 Tb. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

2½ lb. fresh spinach, stemmed and finely chopped

5 medium cloves garlic, minced (or 6 or 7 or 9. Whatever.)

3 Tb. flour

2-3 c. crumbled feta cheese, about 1 lb.

1 c. cottage cheese

Black pepper, to taste

1/3 c. olive oil

1 lb. phyllo pastry, 16 to 20 leaves, thoroughly defrosted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x13” baking pan.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or deep skillet. Add onion, salt, and herbs, and sauté for about 5 minutes, or until the onion softens. Add the spinach, turn up the heat, and cook, stirring, until the spinach wilts, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic. Sprinkle in the flour, stir, and cook over medium heat 2 to 3 more minutes. Remove from heat.

Mix in the cheese, then correct the seasonings, adding black pepper to taste along the way.

Place a sheet of phyllo in the prepared pan, letting the pastry edges climb up the side. Brush it all over with olive oil, then add another sheet. Keep going until you have a stack of 10 oiled sheets. Don’t let it creep too high up the edge or it’ll crumble a lot if you try to transport it.

Add the filling, spreading it evenly to the edges. Continue layering and oiling the remaining phyllo on top of the filling. Oil the top layer. Gently with a serrated knife in a sawing motion cut the unbaked spanakopita into squares. Bake uncovered for about 45 minues, or until golden and crispy. Serve hot or warm.

Phyllo gets kind of a bad rap because it can be difficult to work with and dry out quickly. You just have to be faster. This was not that difficult to put together and it was tasty for days afterward. Give it a try.

Lemony Chicken Pot Pie with Parsley Biscuit Crust

I'm falling behind on the whole blogging thing again. I have been cooking and baking and doing all of that fun stuff quite a lot lately, but can never seem to remember to actually post about it, which is sad because I'm making some good stuff. Like this awesome pot pie casserole. There are two parts that will bother Aaron and Renai respectively. Part one, to bother Aaron, is that I loved chopping the parsley for the biscuits. It smells so good and I think I just like chopping parsley in general.

Part two, to bother Renai, is my removal of the fennel from the original recipe. I am just not a huge licorice fan and though I do like a little bit of fennel in my Italian sausages, that's usually about as far as it goes. Yeah, I don't like star anise either. My palate has grown quite a lot, but I'm just not into it.

Anyway, my version of this recipe is tasty because I'm sure the original was tasty too. I followed the suggestions on the original pages and added in spinach and carrots and, of course, upped the garlic a bit. Either way, this is sure to keep you warm inside.

Oh, I also call BS on the 40 minute time frame. This sucker took a long time because there's a lot of prep involved. I might not be the fastest prep cook in the world, but this would take anyone a bit of time to get together. Plus, the baking time alone is 40 minutes. So there.

Lemony Chicken Pot Pie with Parsley Biscuit Crust modified from Serious Eats:

Serves 6

For the biscuit topping:
1¼ c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ c. fresh flat-leaf parsley, very finely chopped
¼ c. unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
½ c. milk

For the chicken:
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ c. all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1½ lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into ½” chunks
2 c. carrots, cut into chunks
3 c. fresh spinach
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 c. dry white wine
2 c. veggie broth
2/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400°F and lightly grease the baking dish with olive oil.

Prepare the biscuit dough. Mix the flour in a medium bowl with the baking powder, salt, and parsley. Cut in the cold butter and work it in with your fingers or a pastry blender until the flour mixture resembles soft bread crumbs. Add the milk, stirring just until the dough comes together. Set aside.

Cut the chicken breasts into large bite-size pieces. Toss the pieces in a bowl with the flour and 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Set aside.

Heat a generous drizzle of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or sauté pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle when a drop of water is flicked in, add the chicken and brown for about 6 minutes, turning halfway through. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion, carrots, spinach, and garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until they start to turn tender and fragrant. Add the potatoes and turn the heat up a little. Sauté the potatoes for a few minutes with the onion, then add the lemon zest, lemon juice, and wine and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the broth and chicken, and season the stew with about 1 teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper.

 Spread the stew in the prepared baking dish. Drop the biscuit dough on top in 6 to 8 evenly spaced mounds and sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the top. Bake, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked and the biscuit topping is golden. Serve hot.

I really, really loved this. I wasn't sure my Le Creuset could handle the volume, but it worked beautifully. The only other thing I'd change would be to double the biscuit topping to cover the whole stew. They are really awesome biscuits and deserve more attention.

Kale, Spinach, and Pear Smoothie

 I’ve been feeling blah this week. That means that I’ve been eating lots of soup (with garlic!), drinking lots and lots of tea, and watching Netflix like crazy. Oh yeah, and doing homework. Anyway, this smoothie is getting me back on the mend. Lots of greens for breakfast or dessert and it tastes fantastic? Yes please! Plus, it starts with almond milk, which is my favorite nondairy choice.

Kale Spinach and Pear Smoothie from Joy the Baker:

Makes 1 dynamite smoothie

1 c. spinach leaves
1 c. chopped kale leaves
½ pear
1 frozen banana
1½ c. cold almond milk
1 Tb. honey (I used lavender honey)

Remove kale leaves from their rough center stalk and coarsely chop. In a blender or food processor, combine kale, spinach, and almond milk. Blend until no big kale bits remain. Stop and add banana, honey, and pear. Blend until smooth. Enjoy immediately.

You can make this all the way vegan easily by subbing in another natural sweetener for the honey. You might get spinach or kale in your teeth, but it’s tasty and good for you! Win!

Spinach-Ricotta Pie

Yes, yes, it’s another Moosewood recipe. I had actually wanted to do this one last week, but surprisingly didn’t have enough onion. So now I have two and a half just in case that same problem tries to come up again.

For tips on doing the pie crust, check out my post when I made pumpkin and apple pies for Thanksgiving here. The crust used for this recipe is pretty good, but if I do this again, I’ll use the other one. It’s a little flakier and easier to work with. I did enjoy this pie quite a bit and the filling was really easy to put together. I cheated a bit and used frozen spinach instead of fresh, but I think that made the cooking part just a little easier. If you also chose the cheater route, make sure the spinach is fully drained before you use it.

Spinach-Ricotta Pie from The New Moosewood Cookbook:

Serves 4-6

For the crust-
6 Tb. butter, cut into small pieces
1½ c. flour
About 4 Tb. cold water (or milk or buttermilk)

For the filling-
1 tsp. butter
1 c. minced onion
1 lb. spinach, stemmed and finely chopped
½ tsp. salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 tsp. basil
1 lb. ricotta cheese
2 or 3 beaten eggs (I used two)
3 Tb. flour
½ c. packed grated sharp cheese of your choice (I used cheddar)
A dash of nutmeg (optional. I love how nutmeg mixes with cheeses, so I chose to do this)
Optional toppings (1 c. sour cream, lightly beaten and paprika. I just used the paprika.)



Use a pastry cutter, two forks, or a food processor to cut together the butter and flour until the mixture is uniformly blended and resemble coarse cornmeal. Add just enough liquid to hold the dough together. Roll out the dough and form a crust in a 9-or-10-inch pie pan. Mine’s 9.5”. I find this very funny for some reason. Set aside.



Heat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the butter in a medium-sized skillet, add the onion, and sauté for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the spinach, salt, pepper, and basil, and cook, stirring, over medium-high heat until the spinach is wilted. Since my spinach was frozen and fairly wilted to begin with, I let this cook for about 5-7 minutes. Remove from heat.



Combine all the filling ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Spread into the unbaked pie shell. For an extra rich pie, top with sour cream and spread to the edges of the crust. Dust generously with paprika. I love paprika, so I just dusted it with paprika.





Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until firm to the touch at the center. Mine was done at 40 minutes even. Serve, hot, warm, or at room temperature.

This is very tasty and filling. I meant to serve it with salad, but was so hungry I just dug in and now I’m stuffed. Good thing there’s a lot of spinach in there! My husband suggested adding chicken next time, which I think would go very well with the spinach and ricotta. I think this would also make a great filling for calzones.