go greek! (with some spanakopita!)

in the midst of studying for a million exams, i decided to take a break and make dinner that would yield enough leftovers for me to nom on throughout the next few days.  during one of my study breaks, i flipped on Barefoot Contessa and Ina was making spanakopita.  PERFECT.  i made a whole batch and they are the perfect thing for dinner the first night, breakfast in the mornings (really its just spinach and eggs and cheese!), and a light lunch with a salad.  not too many ingredients later, i had the most delicious spanakopita, which i am actually eating as i blog this :]

if you search for ina's recipe for spanakopita, it has a million ingredients and a million steps.  i simplified mine waaaay down and it is even better than i imagine her's would have been.  who needs one tablespoon of pine nuts or 2 tablespoons of green onions?  it is still kind of time intensive to make because we are working with phyllo dough, but i promise it is completely worth the trouble!

start off with collecting your ingredients:
-two 10 oz. frozen packages of spinach
-one medium onion, chopped
-one clove garlic
-two eggs
-1/4 c. breadcrumbs
-1 1/2 c. reduced-fat feta cheese
-1 roll of phyllo dough (about 28 sheets), thawed in the fridge
-6 tbs. of butter
-olive oil, S&P
-nutmeg
-crushed red pepper flakes

start by defrosting your frozen spinach blocks.  i threw mine in the microwave (unwrapped from their packaging) in a glass bowl for about 6-7 minutes, stirring, then again for 5 minutes.  once it is all defrosted, put it in a colander and squeeeeeeeeze all the water out.  it should look like this!



next, chop up one medium sized onion and sautee it up in a skillet with some olive oil and a minced clove of garlic until the onions are soft and slightly caramelized (about 5 or 6 minutes on med.)

let both the onions and the spinach cool (stirring occasionally to release the heat) before you move on to finish the filling.  why?  we're adding eggs next and you don't want them to scramble because your other ingredients are hot!

in the mean time, get your phyllo dough out of the refrigerator and unroll it out on a large cutting board.  you'll see that it is incredibly delicate and made of a million layers that you can separate from one another.  i used 5 sheets per batch of 2 spanakopita, so i made about 10 delicious bundles by the end.  melt 5 tablespoons of butter in a bowl and using a pastry brush (or if you don't have one, get a paper towel, ball it up, then use that to mop the layers!).  carefully take one layer of phyllo and lay it down on the cutting board.  brush it with melted butter (very, very carefully so you don't rip it!) and then lay down a second piece of phyllo on top of the buttered layer.  continue this until you lay down the 5th layer which you don't need to butter.  cut the stack right down the middle lengthwise to get dough for two spanakopitas.  it should look like this!

now to finish the filling:  combine the spinach and the onions together in a bowl and mix together.  take your reduced-fat feta cheese (crumbled) and put about a cup and a half right in the filling (the more the better in my opinion!)  season with S&P, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of nutmeg (go easy on this, its a strong spice!), and a sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes.  once seasoned, add two beaten eggs and 1/4 c. of breadcrumbs, which both act as binders so your filling isn't runny!  here's what mine looked like:

now for the assembly (which i will kindly show you in photos!).  start off by placing 1/3 c. of your delicious filling at the bottom of each phyllo half.  next, you will be rolling these spanakopita up like a flag!  take a bottom corner and fold it diagonally into a triangle shape (making sure all the filling stays in!).  

  

                        

then continue to fold the triangles up like a flag until you get to the very end.  then take the little last corner and brush it with butter to help it stick when you make your last fold.  then voila!  repeat this entiiiiire process until you run out of filling and/or phyllo dough.  brush the tops of the spanakopita with the remaining tablespoon of melted butter and place them on a baking sheet.  *note: you won't need to butter/spray your cookie sheet for these babies.. they have enough butter to non-stick themselves!*

bake these beauties off in a 375 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes until they are golden brown.  and then use an extreme amount of self control... because you will want to eat all ten spanakopita right when they pop out of the oven.  (i may have had two and a half...)

enjoy these flaky, buttery, salty spanakopita for the perfect greek night!  (oh, and you can make these half-sized for appetizers... but who would want to eat a smaller version of these when you can have a big one?) :]