Sweet potato, silverbeet, and goats feta pies

You know sometimes you cook something, and it's nice but not quite perfect. So you tinker with it and perfect it. Sometimes you cook something and it is nice, but... not quite perfect, and not really nice enough for you to want to tinker with. That is what I thought of this dish. The cream cheese pastry was suitably short and crumbly, and great with the caramelised onion and garlic spinach. The sweet potato, in my opinion, added unnecessary stodge to the recipe.Rather than tinkering with it to make it better,I think omitting the sweet potato all together and making it a caramelised onion and spinach tart would be better...




The original recipe is found at Sweet potato, silverbeet and goat's feta pies - Gourmet Traveller

Baked eggs with creamy spinach

 

Ingredients

300g baby spinach
2 tablespoons crumbled boursin (or cream cheese, with chopped garlic and chives)
4 tbs cream
4 eggs
  
Buttered toast, to serve

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Lightly grease four 3/4 cup-capacity ovenproof dishes.


Place spinach in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high (100%) for 1 minute 30 seconds or until just wilted. Transfer spinach to a sieve. Using the back of a spoon, press down on spinach to drain excess liquid.


Divide spinach between prepared dishes. Sprinkle each with cheese and add a tablespoon of cream.
 
Gently crack 1 egg into each dish. Season with salt and pepper. Place dishes on a baking tray. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes or until eggwhite is just set. Remove from oven. Stand for 2 minutes. Serve with toast.



Note: I love love love my new little mini baking dishes - they are sooo cute!!

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.