Foodie Friday_ Spanakopita!

Recently when there was nothing much on TV (like, the whole of Christmas!) we stuck on an episode of "Dinner Date".

On of the guys cooking made a vegetarian menu, with Spanakopita starter and stuffed peppers (!) for main.  I think he cooked veggie food cuz he wasn't a very good cook and less stuff could go wrong with vegetarian courses??  He tried one of his Spanakopita and said it was like eating PVA glue, mmm.

Anyways, for Christmas I got Jerry "Vegan with a Vengeance"; a cookbook we used to have, but it the course of our many house moves it has either been lost, or remains in storage at a parent's house. We would occasionally wonder what had happened to it, so it seemed to be a nice re-purchase item.

So, one of the recipes in it is for Spanakopita! This seemed like the perfect excuse to make it... hopefully edible ones too!

This was not a recipe I had made when we used to have the book previously; here are my substitutions:

- I used frozen spinach, not fresh
- I picked up fresh dill in the supermarket (pretty amazed that they had it in there!), but somehow it did not make it's way thru the checkout?? I blame the cashier!
- I made a special trip to 8th Day to buy nutritional yeast- it seems to be about the only place I've ever seen it ++ mental note, perhaps email Holland & Barrett to ask them to stock it  ++
- I also got nice greek black olives, and extra virgin olive oil in 8th Day (should have bought tofu in there too, but that's a different story)

The method was fairly similar to the 'tofu ricotta' she makes in the Pizzas section of the book.

You cook the spinach & spring onions etc. in a pan, but then she directs you to do the tofu/nutritional yeast part in a big bowl; tipping the spinach into this after.  As soon as I started doing this I was like "uh, why = extra washing up" but it was too late by then, so further mental note for future reference ++ just do it all in the same pan eh?

The quantities she gives make 30-triangle shaped pastries, which I wasn't up for- I made nine I think, but they were really easy (and my little girl especially Loved 'painting' the oil all over the filo pastry!), and I have leftover ingredients to make some more- this time with Dill in - for my Monday working lunch.

I served this with Jamie Oliver's Greek salad recipe (which was also supposed to have Dill in it!), hummus and pitta breads.