Spanakopita and Greek Salad

I love me some spinach pie. And yet, until today, I'd never made it. This recipe from Closet Cooking (whose recipes I always end up clicking on on Tastespotting and Foodgawker), was simple, easy and delicious. Plus it used up many of the veggies I bought from Star Hollow Farm last week: spinach, dill, green onion, parsley.If you wanted to make some self-contained empanada-sized spanakopita, or even little appetizer sized spanakopita, I think you could easily modify the recipe- just cut the phyllo into long strips and roll tablespoons of filling up.

Served with a Greek salad with this easy red wine vinaigrette.

Phyllo and Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

Lindsay and Tim had a gang of us over for a potluck Easter dinner in their backyard since the weather was so amazing here in DC this weekend... great food, great company, totally inappropriate but hilarious conversation!!

My contribution to the dinner was an asparagus appetizer that was super tasty, although somewhat of a pain to make. It sounds simple enough: prosciutto and phyllo dough wrapped around an asparagus spear, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with parmesan. Easier said than done, though. The thinly sliced prosciutto is sticky and breaks into pieces, and phyllo is even more finicky and easily torn. But the ultimate product was worth it- salty, crispy, asparagus-y. The motto for making these little buggers should be "less is more"- you need only half a piece of prosciutto and like a quarter of a sheet of phyllo for each one.

Phyllo Cups with Brie, Jam and Pecans

So... I made these a couple years ago for Barbara and Mark's engagement party. However, I used pre-made phyllo cups then. Today, for Meagan's going-away party, I wasn't able to find the pre-made cups, so I bought a package of frozen phyllo dough and made my own, using a Googled recipe. Not too bad, although maybe I would cute the squares smaller next time to eliminate some of the excess dough, which flailed all around uselessly.

My aim in making the cups was to fill each with tiny square of brie, 1/2 tsp of jam and a pecan, which I did. Mmmm. I used peach jam from my CSA, but you could use whatever- raspberry, apricot, etc.