I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

feta cheese

Skillet Spinach Pie

Skillet Spinach Pie

Hi my name is Popeye.

Well, it might as well be considering how much spinach I’ve been eating lately. I basically eat spinach every day. For real. I have spinach in salad every day for lunch and then I add more spinach to my diet for breakfast or dinner too in different ways as well. The Greek Quiche I recently made is a perfect option for either meal.

Skillet Spinach Pie-1

Spinach is just so good for you. It is a low fat food that is high in fiber, protein. As well, it loaded with vitamins A, C, E and K, thiamin, vitamin B6, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and manganese, niacin, and zinc. Flavonids in spinach also help as antioxidants to keep cholesterol from oxidizing and protect your body from free radicals.  If heart health is a concern that spinach is your friend as it’s great for you cardiovascular system as the magnesium in it helps lower high blood pressure. Overall spinach is a great super food that can be enjoyed in juice form, raw, and cooked. It’s versatile nature makes it easy to incorporate into your healthy diet.

So, here I go again making another spinach packed pie!

This is a fun play on Spanokopita in that it’s served just like a pie instead of the handheld triangles I normally see. They are great as well but I like this ratio of filling to phyllo much more in this pie. I just love spinach and feta so much so my craving is satisfied with this pie. The original recipe called for dill but I just don’t like dill that much so I added some oregano, which pairs well with Greek recipes, instead.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s pie recipe! Get ready for a sweet treat for next week!

Skillet Spinach Pie-2

Skillet Spinach Pie

Makes 8 serving

Ingredients

  • 1/2 stick unsalted butter
  • 1 small yellow onion, chopped
  • 20 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
  • 1 cup whole-milk ricotta
  • 3 large eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  • 1 pinch of crushed red pepper
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 4 sheets frozen #10 phyllo dough, thawed

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. In a 10-inch non-stick skillet, melt butter over medium heat.  Once melted, reserve 2 tablespoons in a small bowl.
  3. Add the onion to the skillet and stir while cooking until softened, about 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from heat and let cool slightly.
  4. Stir in the spinach, ricotta, eggs, feta, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper.

  5. Lay 1 sheet phyllo on a work surface and lightly brush with the reserved melted butter. Lay the sheet, butter side up, over the spinach mixture, folding edges under to fit inside skillet. (Keep the extra phyllo covered while you work.) One at a time, brush remaining 3 sheets and add to the top of the skillet, rotating and scrunching each sheet slightly so edges are offset and the top is ruffled.

  6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and heated through.

Slightly adapted from Everyday Food, Oct 2013

Easy Greek Spinach Quiche

Inspired by spanakopita, this Easy Greek Spinach Quiche is loaded with spinach and feta. It’s like your taste buds traveled to Greece!

Quiche makes for a wonderful meal you can eat all day long. Enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It’s a versatile meal that is is yummy and adaptable.

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Read More

Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken

When we first got Kemper I took most of the next week off so I could run outside with him every hour-ish so we could get him trained quickly. Well in hopes of that. Also in making wrong assumptiongs… I thought I would get so much blogging, scrapbooking, cleaning done while he sleep but that is a big fat no since I just ooed and awwed over him while he slept. Seriously. Hopeless.

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 Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken_03 Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken_04

At least I did manage to make some great meals for my lunches and for our dinners that week. I’ve been looking all around at the mass quantities of cookbooks I have and I’ve decided that I need to actually crack them open and make some recipes from them. The first one I grabbed was The Ultimate Casseroles Book: More than 400 Heartwarming Dishes from Dips to Desserts. This is such a fantastic Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. There are so many great recipes in there that I’ve flagged. The book is so full of post-it’s now it’s a bit crazy.

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Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken_07 Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken_08

I suggest that you try the Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken Breasts because they were just fantastic. I love spanakopita with it’s puff pastry pockets stuffed with spinach, salty feta, and fresh lemon. Stuffing the chicken breasts with that mixture was a great way to spice up some chicken for dinner. I love Greek inspired dishes and this is one that I will make again.

I made some changes along the way but it still worked out just a planned. Mainly, I used boneless skinless chicken breasts instead of bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. My preparation of the chicken differed as I didn’t stuff the spinach mixture between the skin and breasts, but created a pocket myself. Also, the recipe called for 3 tablespoons snipped fresh dill added to the spinach mixture, but I didn’t have it around so I didn’t want to buy it just for this as I don’t really like dill anyway.

Spanakopita Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped onion (1 medium)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 10oz box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta
  • 1/4 ground nutmeg
  • 1 medium sized lemon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 4 skinless chicken breasts (approximately 2 pounds)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 medium sized lemon, cut into wedges

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a 3 quart casserole dish by spraying with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In a medium skillet, heat the extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent (about 4-6 minutes). Remove from heat then add the spinach, feta, nutmeg, pepper, and the juice from 1 lemon. Combine all the ingredients  and then divide into 4 equal portions.
  3. Cut large pockets into the chicken breasts. Put 1/4 of the spinach mixture into each open chicken breast. Close the chicken breasts as much as possible and place in the casserole dish. Add the lemon wedges to the casserole dish. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  4. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink (170 degrees).

Ready for Spring-Edamame Salad

Spring is confused in Boston. For one thing it is just about constantly raining. I’m ready for the rain to stop so I can get out in the yard and fix everything that the rain screwed up and prepare things for planting. But instead we have a sunny day in the 70’s, then it drops to the 50’s and is cloudy, then rains for 3 more day and just when you think you can’t take it anymore is snows, but before you drink yourself stupid it’s back in the 70’s 2 days later. That’s New England for you.

Well hoping to get things going in the right direction I made an edamame salad with dinner recently. Price and I live off salads like this in the summer. We mainly eat Horiatiki Salata throughout the summer but this might need to be added into the rotation. We used a 10oz package from Trader Joes, which was very convenient. I’d imagine that the frozen kind would work too, but I would let it thaw naturally or let cool before adding everything else.

The dressing is done to taste. Adjust the quantities to taste. For example I love lemon and lime juice, which might be too much for someone else. The point is to have a starting point to create something that you will enjoy.

Edamame Salad

serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

  • 10 oz of shelled edamame
  • 8 oz of grape tomatoes, halved
  • half of an orange pepper, diced
  • 1 small red ion, diced
  • 2 oz of feta

Dressing:

  • 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
  • 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
  • 2-4 tablespoons lime juice
  • 1/4 extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Process

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with the shelled edamame. Crumble the feta block into the vegetables.
  2. In a bowl, make the dressing by wisking the mustard and garlic with the vinegar and juice. Once the solids are completely incorporated add the oil.
  3. Gently mix together the salad with the dressing, and salt & pepper to taste.