Forgive me for taking so long to complete a blog, but I have started to work again and am having a hard time just getting enough sleep much less the extras like cooking, cleaning and blogging. As I am adjusting to the huge chunk of free time being gone, I will post as often as possible. Please bear with me.

So, phyllo dough, it’s a love/hate relationship. I love the crispy, flaky pastry, but it is not the easiest to work with.  The secret is to work quickly, cause it dries out in about 2 seconds without a damp towel to keep it moist; and lots of butter. In this baklava recipe you lavish melted butter on every other sheet. Gotta love it.

Since I had the dough out, I thought I would do a savory application as well, spanikopita. It is basically a spinach and cheese triangle or it can be put together like a flaky lasagna. Here is the link where I got my recipe, then I winged it from there.

Baklava ingredients

Syrup
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups honey
2 inch cinnamon stick
4 lemon slices
4 orange slices
Pastry
1 pkg (1 lb) phyllo pastry
2 cups
walnuts, finely chopped
1 cup almonds, finely chopped
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter

Method

1. Make the syrup: combine sugar, 3/4 cup water and bring to boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
2. Add honey, cinnamon stick and citrus slices. Reduce heat, simmer, uncovered 10 minutes.
3. Strain; cool. 2 1/2 cups.
4. Preheat oven to 325F.
5. Mix walnuts, almonds, 3/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
6. Place 2 pastry sheets in a jelly roll pan, brush with melted butter.
7. Continue stacking sheets to 14 and buttering every other sheet. (Keep the rest covered with a damp cloth.)
8. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the nut mixture. Add 6 more sheets, buttering as before. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the mixture. Add 6 more sheets, and the last of the nut mixture.
9. Stack any remaining sheets on the top, again with the buttering. Trim edges if necessary.
10. With a sharp knife, cut through top layer on long side; make diagonal cuts at 1 1/2 inch intervals. Then, starting at one corner, make cuts on the diagonal at 1 1/2 inch intervals, to form diamonds. ( Cut through the top layer only.)
11. Bake 6 minutes, or until golden and puffy. Turn off heat. Leave in oven 600 minutes; remove. Pour cooled syrup over hot baklava.  Following diamond pattern cut all the way through baklava.  Cool in pan. 35 pieces

Pastries baklava nuts phyllo spanikopita spinach