This past weekend was my birthday and I decided what I wanted most was to spend the day trying new recipes out. So I made a variety of appetizers recipes and celebrated by having family for a dinner with my experiments.
The first recipe I decided to try was one for spinach and feta turnovers. My family is greek and I often make spanokopita. I’ve experimented with making it with other greens like chard and had lots of luck in the past. However, the process of making spanokopita can be very time consuming. I wondered if I could take the filling and make it in a simpler/quicker way.
Sometimes I’ve done this by making small phyllo dough triangles filled with the mixture. But this still means messing with phyllo dough. So I decided on two alternatives this time.
Option 1 phyllo shells. I bought premade phyllo pasty shells, blinded baked, and filled with a pureed pita mixture – chard, egg, melted butter, feta cheese. Pluses – super easy and quick. Minuses the chard didn’t cook nicely. Fix of next time? Blanch the chard before pureeing with other ingredients
Option 2 – turn overs. My spouse made me a batch of pie dough and I divided it up into 8 portions to roll out and fill with the NORMAL pita mixture and bake off. Pluses – cooked mixture texture spot on. Minuses – rolling and filling dough can be a pain in the butt. Plus getting the RIGHT amount of filling is a little tricky.
Overall Thoughts
Option 1 is perfect if you’re in a big rush and want something that looks fancy, tastes delicious but is dead easy.
Option 2 is good if you want more of a challenge and want to create a larger size appetizer or even something which is a quick reheatable lunch.