Food Crazy!!!

Note: I have highlighted links in RED.  Not sure why but blogger is not formatting my links appropriately.  Until I figure this out I just changed the font color on my own.  It says they are underlined too but I can't see it on my screen....

Were you one of the crazies that resolved to lose weight in 2011??  Well I didn't.  So I'm going to share some food stuff with you.  And if you're currently crunching on a carrot or celery stick trying to drop a bunch of pounds then don't read this 'cuz I'll only have you breaking that New Year's resolution one week in....

First I have to apologize in being remiss in not better spotlighting the food blogs of my friends. Let's Dish is the food blog of Mom Outnumbered - otherwise referred to as "the wife of a grad school buddy", aka Danelle.  I normally wouldn't use her name but she does -  so the jig is up.  She makes some VERY tasty recipes and I love them because they are generally easy and fast.  She cooks for four boys for cryin' out loud!  (that range in age from 6 - "adult".  We won't give away her hubby's age ; )  I highly encourage you to check out her blog and her extensive recipe collection.  Our favorite is the Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork .  Of course I have a lot still to try.....  But if the hubby likes it and I can throw it in the crock pot it's a winner!!

And then there's Sara Bir, The Sausagetarian.  I've known Sara since we were, well, I don't know - before pre-school??  I know we went to pre-school together.  Suffice it to say, a LONG TIME.  Sara is a profession food writer and chef and lives in Oregon.  Again, I wouldn't have used her name but what can I say??  It's the address of her blog!!    While Sara definitely includes recipes she also writes about how the recipe came about, or why she made it, or, well, LOTS of things!  She's a FOOD WRITER!!  Duh!!  But I also love how she writes about her childhood memories of food in Ohio where we grew up.  That won't mean much to you but it does to me.  It means that she didn't go off to the Culinary Institute of America, move to Oregon and get all hoity-toity about food and forget about all the great stuff you find right along the Ohio river.  In other words - she didn't get too big for her britches!

Ok - now that I feel I have sufficiently introduced the foodies I will tell you what I made this weekend. 

Well, only after I make a confession. 

I've been in a food slump lately.  I haven't really been inspired to try lots of new things.  Usually I go through fits where I'll be making new stuff for months!  But I can't say that really happened in 2010.  I did try a new recipe here and there but nothing like in the past.  But I'm getting re-inspired!

This weekend I made spanikopita.  It's a savory Greek pastry.  It's a spinach and feta mix wrapped in layers of thin phyllo dough.  I used Emeril's recipe from the Food Network.  They rate it as difficult but I don't think it is.  I suppose phyllo can be difficult to work with because it's so thin but just be careful with it and keep the sheets you aren't using covered with a wet towel and you'll be fine.  Oh - and to make the squares just fold the pastry just like they taught you how to fold the flag in scouts. 

Now every version of spanikopita calls for brushing butter between each layer of phyllo.  Let's just say it's a lot of butter.  But Sara informed me you can use olive oil instead.  I'm sure it'll still "grease the tracks" but at least it's healthier and lighter tasting than all that butter. 

It just occured to me that I should be taking snapshots of my food to share!!  I'm no photographer like Neda and Danelle but at least you could have a visual to go with the story...  like if you have NO idea what spanikopita is...

I had a stray sheet of phyllo and decided to see what I could cook up.  (pun intended...)  so I made little strips of the phyllo and put a dollop of basil pesto and goat cheese on each and rolled them suckers up!  Some were triangles.  Some were.... some other shape...  Appetizer size, of course.  They were great!  except I put too much pesto in and it squished out the ends.  But it was soooo  good!

So now I've decided I'm going with that theme and I'm going to add some chicken to the pesto and goat cheese mix and make me some more kopitas!!!  I dropped the "spani" because I dropped the spinach...  I don't know if that's proper Greek or not but who cares.   Maybe I'll call it "Pollo Kopita"!!  I mean really - Greece and Italy are close enough to each other I can mix and match, right??

So watch out - my food mojo is back!! 

(and really the only person this really impacts is the hubby....  he needs to be prepared for many possible "pizza nights" - my fall back in the event a recipe goes waaaay wrong...)