All About Food
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Friday, December 02, 2005
My Big Fat Greek Salad
Back in April or May, I posted my recipe for My Big Fat Greek Salad. I made one for Thanksgiving dinner ~ it's one of my signature dishes & everyone requests it. I didn't post a picture back then on this site, but I wanted to post one now so you could see how beautiful it looks.

Remember, there is no lettuce in a REAL Greek salad!

:)

Written at 3:58 PM by Marianna.
8 comments
My Big Fat Greek Tyropita
This is a wonderful appetizer served in Greece. It's called tyropita ~ or cheese pie. It's ironic that Ms. Insanity posted her Cooking Cabal recipe for us to make ~ it reminds me a bit of my tyropitas I made Wednesday nite. The funny thing is that Greeks also make something called "spanakopita", which means "spinach pie", based off of the same premise as tyropita, except only with spinach added. So. Here's how I made my tyropita:

1 package of phyllo dough ~ my box came with 2 separate "rolls" of phyllo dough. I only used 1 roll.
1.5 lbs of feta cheese
1 cup of cottage cheese
6 eggs
black pepper (I omitted this because I don't like pepper)
margarine or butter, melted down & clarified

I defrosted the phyllo dough til it was defrosted ~ it didn't take long ~ maybe 1/2 an hour. In a large mixing bowl, I crumbled the feta cheese into decent bite pieces ~ not too big & not too small. I added the cottage cheese & the eggs & mixed it all well with a fork.

In the meantime, in a small sauce pan, clarify the butter or margarine. I think I used maybe almost 3/4 cup of margarine.

I used one of those disposable lasagna pans (I had one left over from Thanksgiving) & sprayed Pam in the bottom & sides of it. Then I laid down my 1st sheet of phyllo dough. If you've never worked with phyllo dough, you have to be quick & careful with it. It tears easy. After I laid down my 1st layer, I took the melted margarine & used a pastry brush & put some of the margarine on the phyllo dough. Then added another sheet of phyllo dough. More margarine. I did this 8 times ~ approximately 1/2 the package of my phyllo dough. Then I added the cottage cheese/feta cheese/egg mixture & spread it carefully throughout the pan. Then I followed up the top of that with the rest of the phyllo dough sheets ~ about 9 in total. Make sure you add the margarine or butter layers between the phyllo ones.

Since it was too tender to cut at that point, I waited til it was in the oven for about 10 minutes before I sliced (not all the way thru ~ just the top layer) diamond shaped patterns on the top surface of the tyropita. You basically slice down the length of the pan & then come back & do a diagonal (in the same direction after you slice 3 lengths downward. I know, confusing. I PROMISE I'll take pics the next time I make it. You cook the entire pie for about an hour on a 350 degree oven.

After it comes out of the oven, you can slice it all the way down to the bottom of the pan. Serve & eat hot!

I managed to take some pictures AFTER I already took them OUT of the pan. I kinda forgot to take pics along the way. Dork. But here are a couple shots of what it looks like:


Written at 3:53 PM by Marianna.
5 comments