We went to a neighbor’s for dinner last night and normally the host does the main course and we fill in for appetizers and sides. This is a pastry chef.
What did I make? Spanakopita. Spinach and toasted pignoli and feta and sauteed shallots, all in a store-bought fillo shell.
I made 20 individual “turnovers” and used two sticks of butter doing it. It made a real mess of my kitchen counter but they were tasty, cooked through, flaky but not as browned as I’d have liked. If I turned on the broiler, the oven is so irregular here that they probably would have been incinerated. So I opted for less than perfect but they were good.
Now that I have conquered my fear of phyllo (I’ve not mastered it, to be sure) I’m eager to try individual meat pies for the two of us. It is good that phyllo does not have butter in it, because otherwise I’d melt it with disastrous results.
Please give me credit for trying to make a pastry dish, plus making it for a pastry chef. I did OK. Better next time, as always. Hope your flowers are blooming, we’re starting to get a few buds here and there and daffodils are out. That’s what happens when you live in the mountains.
Keep cooking and let me know what recipes you’d like to share. Best wishes, Dee
Cooking with Dee 