Easy Freezer Meal: Spanikopita

We've been making a serious effort not to eat out/take in food recently.  It's not good for the budget or the waistline!  Unfortunately, I'm the only one who cooks in our house, so I've been trying to make it easier on myself by doing a lot of planning ahead and making my own convenient freezer food.  My husband can manage, at least, to heat things up by following directions written directly on the wrapper.  ;-)

And we need those kinds of easy, freezer meals, particularly on Monday nights.  It's a full schedule of dropping off and picking up from Irish dancing lessons, and I don't get back from my own Irish dance lessons until about 9:30pm.  Homemade spanikopita to the rescue!

My recipe is extraordinarily simple.  The technique unfussy.  And it makes a wonderful meatless, quick, easy meal.

Spanikopita Recipe

• one roll of filo dough, thawed
• one bag of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 6oz crumbled feta cheese
• fresh dill, to taste
• olive oil spray

1)  Mix the spinach, feta, and dill together.  

2)  Cut the entire pile of filo dough sheets in half.  Set out two of the small rectangles of filo dough on a lightly oiled surface (I use the olive oil spray for this job).

3)  Place some filling about two inches from the edge of the filo.  I made mine kind of flat and rectangular. I was going for something about the size of a hot pocket.  Except, you know, yummy.

4)  Fold the filo carefully over the folling, and give it a single roll.  Then fold the left and right sides in toward the center, so none of the yummy filling will escape from the ends.  

Continue rolling, until you have kind of flat spanikopita burritos.  Spray lightly with olive oil.

At this point, you can either go ahead and bake, or wrap up in cling wrap and throw in the freezer.  Either way, the cooking instructions are the same:  375 for 30 minutes.  No need to defrost before baking, just throw the frozen spanikopita on the pan and bake straight from the freezer.

Mmmm, dinner.