Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tonight’s dinner includes two recipes, both prepared mostly the night before. The Spanakopita was stuffed the night before and baked as soon as I got home from work for dinner. It’s based on another recipe from Leitesculinaria.com. Here, I halved the recipe. I also omitted the dill, since my wife dislikes it.
The filling is made with cooked spinach and onions with a bit of rice which is not very traditional but makes it nice and substantial. Once the cooked filling is cooled I mixed in a good amount of Feta cheese.
I baked this in an 8-inch round cake pan instead of a rectangular one because it is a half recipe. Every layer of phyllo is given a nice brush with olive oil.
Then the top part is folded over and the pie is ready to bake…or rest in the fridge for the next day.
I made the beets following a recipe from “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”. It just sounded like a great idea. The beets are baked in foil, peeled and sliced. The pistachio butter is made with a bit of oil, garlic and pistachios (after being sautéed in the oil). The combo is unusual and very good. One slight disappointment was the look of this dish. In my head, I was seeing lovely maroon beets drizzled with bright green pistachio butter. Well, the toasting process rendered the nuts delicious, but more like olive-brown than bright green.
