Spinach and Feta Pie

This is a great little pie to make when you have lots of green spinach or spinach-like plants in your garden (or at the farmers markets lol). I usually use english spinach, rather than silverbeet or chard, as it seems to have way less moisture. I also will throw in some of my perpetual spinach, and a few leaves of sorrell which give a lovely lemony acidity to counter-balance the saltiness of the feta. If you don't have sorrell squeezing half a lemon into the spinach-feta mix will do just as well.

It is lovely served hot out of the oven, but it is also very nice served cold with a salad - making it a nice dish to take to a picnic!

Ingredients

Filling
About 400g of spinach/perpetual spinach - chopped roughly
A few leaves of french sorrell or the juice of half a lemon
300g of green onions/spring onions - sliced
200g feta in small cubes
4 eggs beaten

Pastry
A pack of filo pastry
olive oil

Method
Preheat oven to 200C.

Mix the filling ingredients together. taste and season if necessary (usually only pepper, as the feta will salt the dish).

Take a sheet of filo and lay on your oiled baking dish. Brush lightly with olive oil, and lay one cross-ways across it. Continue layering the filo until you have about 14 sheets, brushing lightly with olive oil on every second sheet. Doing this in my square dish allows the filo to create a thin layer of pastry up the sides of the dish/pie and will then fold over the top a little. I then use extra filo to fill the gap. But if your dish is bigger or you don't want to have the pastry on the sides then feel free to trim away!

Fill the pie dish with the filling mixture, pressing down firmly. Top with 7-10 layers of filo sheets. Brush the top layer with olive oil.

Place in over and bake for about 50 minutes or until pastry is golden and crunchy. Serve with a green salad.

Almás lepény

Almás lepény

Almás lepény is a Hungarian apple cake/pie. It is full of appley goodness! The apples for this version came straight from my dad's apple tree - and you can't get fresher than that. I'm not sure what the variety of apple is, but they were pinky-red rather than scarlet, sweet, and slightly tart. Use any sort of apples you want, as long as they are full of flavour! The pie/cake is light and a little bit moist, and will last a day or two - though it is best straight from the oven.

I've been wondering if I can use the same recipe with different fruits, like pears for instance ... will have to give it a go sometime...

Ingredients
200g plain flour
200g butter
4 eggs seperated
75g brown sugar
60g white sugar
500g diced apples (ours came direct from Dad's tree!)
2 apples sliced
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp baking powder

preheat oven to 200C or 400F

Method
Beat eggwhites and white sugar till stiff.

Mix melted butter, brown sugar, and egg yolks. Fold this into the eggwhites. Sift the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder in. Gently fold in the apples.

Pour into a pie dish. arrange apple slices on top. I then sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top, which is why it looks so brown in the pic - not overcooked I promise!

Bake for about 45mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve hot or cold, with or without custard and/or cream.