This is a whole new cooking venture for me, as if all of the others weren’t. I am living in an area full of pubs and restaurants but I have not found a Greek restaurant that appeals to me and not having a job at the moment I thought why not make my own Greek meal at home?

My favorite Greek food has to be the Spanakopita (Spinach Pie). I love it with a nice Greek salad so I figured I would give it a go and I have to say… it went WELL. This is without a doubt the easiest and yet tastiest thing I have made so far.

What you will need for this one (besides a fab photographer to take pictures while you make it, ahem… Jamie Boyd):

• 2 onions, halved and sliced
• butter
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 500g spinach, washed and roughly chopped (I used frozen spinach that was thoroughly thawed)
• nutmeg to taste
• 200g feta cheese
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4 sheets filo pastry per pie (mine came in a rectangle shape, I cut it in half to make squares and so I had the right size to make two pies.)

What you need to do:

First lets deal with the filling.

• Heat the oven to 180c
• Cook the onions and garlic in a bit of butter until they are soft. It is your choice how much butter to use. I used about 1 Tbs.
• Add the spinach in batches and cook until wilted. Mine, being frozen, was already wilted so I cooked it for about 5 to 7 mins until all the ingredients were nicely combined.
• Tip the spinach, onions and garlic into a bowl and add the feta, eggs and grate some nutmeg into it to your liking. Mix it well and when it is thoroughly mixed up set it aside. Now you are ready to move on to the other things you have to do.

**Finished filling set aside… I wanted to just smell this forever.

Next, onto the pastry. There are two versions I tried with this part so take your pick or try both like I did.  I made one pie with butter and one with olive oil.

• Melt butter or pour some good olive oil into a bowl, get a little pastry brush and set aside.
• Lay out a good size piece of greaseproof paper on the countertop. Begin by brushing the sheet of paper with your choice of butter or oil then place the filo pastry on the sheet of paper. Brush the filo with your choice of butter or oil and place the next sheet on top but slightly rotated. Keep going with the rest of the filo sheets, turning a little before adding each additional piece of filo.

**If I can do this without messing it up anyone can. This was my first time ever working with filo pastry.

• When I was done buttering the filo I poured out half of the spinach mix onto the center of the pastry.

• Next fold the filo over the spinach mix. This was easy, and I say that because working with the filo pastry was the part that made me the most nervous. Just grab the edge of the paper and tip it. The paper will let go of the filo so that you can fold it over the top of the spinach. Don’t make it too tight, just gently fold it. Continue all the way around until all of the sides are folded in.
• Lightly butter or oil the top of the filo pastry .
• When it is ready to go you can pop it onto a baking try or into a pie tin and bake it for approximately 25 min. Watch the top and judge it according to how your oven cooks. When it is nice and golden brown it is done.

**Notice that I am taking it out of a frying pan which is another option to bake it in. Thanks Jamie Oliver for this tip. The pan I used is a high quality stainless steel pan with a stainless steel handle. It baked in the oven easily and it made taking the pie out a breeze. I just popped the paper into the pan with the pie on it and whacked it into the oven…. 25 mins later…

**My First Ever Spanakopita! It looked amazing. I felt so proud.

If you are cooking with me, pat yourself on the back, well done! I served this beauty with a nice Mock-Greek salad. I used Romaine Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and balsamic vinegar. You can add red onion, olives and feta to the salad to make it authentic but we thought the pie was rich enough on this occasion.

**Voila! A Greek meal made at home.

This was so much fun and it easily made the 2 pies so we split one for dinner and then had the other split for our lunches the next day. The flavor was out of this world. Jamie and I kept saying ummmm….ummmmm….. It was unreal that something so easy was that tasty.

Now it’s your turn. Try it…add something to it, pine nuts maybe? Let me know how it goes. Enjoy! You too will be saying, Oh My… Spanakopita!           x heather