Dinner idea: Cheesy greens filo pie recipe

If you’ve ever had to feed kids, you’ll know that it’s an exhausting ride every day that you know that you’re only going to have to get up and do again the next day. I am pretty lucky, I have good eaters but adding another child to the mix has brought along challenges. Lacey loves avocado, Luella doesn’t. Lacey is crazy about pumpkin, Luella won’t have a bar of it. There’s a lot of strategic planning that goes into preparing dinner, with the hopeful end result being full tummies and happy children.

A few weekends ago Lacey and I made a cheesy green filo pie together. I know kids would usually run from spinach, but Lacey didn’t blink twice when we were putting it into the pie. Perhaps it’s because we eat spinach and feta gozlemes each Saturday for breakfast. Perhaps it was because she was painting with butter and nothing else seemed to matter!

I placed the meal on the table, served it up and held my breath for a moment. Could it be possible that everyone would eat it and not complain? I gave Luella some, success. I gave Lacey some, success. Hubby ate it. Ma ate it. I ate it. We ALL ate it. No one complained. SUCCESS MY FRIENDS!

This recipe is from the cooking for kids section of the Western Star Butter website.

CHEESY GREENS FILO PIE

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
900g spinach {I used 320g of baby spinach instead}
250g ricotta
120g fetta
2 eggs, lightly beaten
200g Western Star Original Butter, melted {plus a little extra for greasing}
16 sheets of filo

Method

♥ Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a pie dish and set aside.
♥ Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl to cool.
♥ Bring a large pot of water to the boil. In batches, add the spinach for 10-20 seconds and then removing, using tongs and placing into a colander. Squeeze out any excess moisture. Transfer the spinach onto a chopping board and chop finely.
♥ Place the chopped spinach in the bowl with the onions and garlic. Add the eggs, ricotta, and crumble the fetta on top. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Set aside.
♥ Lay a sheet of filo on a clean surface and brush with the melted butter. Top with another sheet of filo and brush with more butter. Repeat this 8 more times until you have a stack of 10 sheets. Lay the filo stack in the prepared pie dish, and then fill with the spinach and cheese mixture.
♥ Brush the remaining filo sheets with butter. Place each on top of the filling to loosely cover, scrunching the pastry to fit into the dish. Transfer into the oven to bake for 1 hour or until golden and cooked through. Allow the pie to cool in the dish for 5 minutes before turning out.
♥ Slice and serve warm or at room temperature. Enjoy.

What’s one meal you can make that everyone likes to eat?