Thursday, July 09, 2009

Spinach & Feta Free-Form Pie

I am so thrilled with this Vegetarian discovery because Varen & I have been trying to do one Vegetarian dinner a week (seems there are a lot of people I know lately who are trying to do things like this or similar). This pie comes out looking impressive and is so so easy to make. And it tastes like a Spanakopita, which is one of my favourite things, ever! (I am so looking forward to the leftovers for lunch a little later!)


So here's the recipe (serves 4):
  • 25g butter, melted (easy peasy to melt in the microwave, a little trick Varen taught me)
  • 10 sheets phyllo pastry (ready made from PnP)
  • 200g feta cheese (I like to use the soft Woolies Danish Feta)
  • 250g baby leaf spinach
  • 1tbsp golden raisins
  • 1tbsp pine nuts
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 200g ricotta, drained
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Brush Spray & Cook a 20cm-round, loose-bottomed tart tin with some of the butter. Lay over a few sheets of phyllo, slightly overlapping and brush the overhanging phyllo with more butter. Basically what I did here was just line my baking tin with the phyllo pastry sheets, in criss-crossing directions since they are rectangular and the tin is round. I didn't use any butter. I also didn't use as many as 10 sheets (maybe about 6 or 7). Repeat to use up all the pastry. Set aside.

Crumble 125g of the feta into a bowl and mix with the rest of the filling ingredients and some seasoning. I advise chopping the spinach to make it easier to combine with the other ingredients. I also recommend being more liberal with the pine nuts and raisins. Now I usually *hate* raisins, but they end up being nice and sweet so get my thumbs up in this dish. Spoon the filling into the phyllo pastry case and crumble over the remaining feta.

Fold the overhanging filo over the filling and scrunch it up roughly to form an edge. At this point I drizzled my melted butter over the top of the folded pastry rim, which seems to work just fine. Bake for 18 - 20 minutes until golden and crisp and the filling is piping hot.

Enjoy!

6 comments:

tanyadeville said...

mmm, this looks really yummy and quite easy too! did you make one big one... or lots of small ones? (hard to tell from the pic... it looks like a small one)
:)

phillygirl said...

Oh no, it's a big 20cm one ... but hahaha, yeah is hard to get any sort of perspective in the photos. Besides, I don't think they make pop-out tins in smaller sizes (what a hassle that'd be!! And you *definitely* need one for this)

Louisa said...

That looks delicious! (I have my reservations about the raisins though).

Tamara said...

Yum! TSC and I have been doing once-a-week-vegetarian for the past few years and I am always on the lookout for recipes that are quick, delicious and filling enough for him.

This looks perfect.

noodle said...

that looks really yum… I pretty much eat only vegetarian during the week, so this sounds like a great addition.

Anonymous said...

oooh! i totally have to make this sometime. it looks awesome.

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