Yaya’s Spanakopetes

Keep fillo dough frozen until the night before baking. Take fillo out of the freezer and put in the refrigerator overnight. One hour prior to folding the pies, place the boxes on the kitchen counter.

Squeeze all of the liquid out of the defrosted spinach using a sieve or colander until almost completely dry. Chop scallion and parsley; grate (very finely chop) onion.

Heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large pot and sauté onion and scallion until limp; don’t brown. Add spinach, parsley, dill, and salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat.

Beat the eggs well and mix together with the spinach. Add the Romano cheese, mix together. If there is too much liquid in the mixture for rolling into pastry, add a little bit of flour to thicken it up.

Melt butter for fillo in a saucepan. Unfold fillo and with a sharp knife, cut the stack into three even pieces lengthwise.

To fold individual pies, brush top layer of fillo strip with melted butter. Place a heaping teaspoon of spinach filling in the bottom corner of the strip. Fold over the spinach to form a triangle and continue folding like you would the American flag.

Brush generously with butter as pastry is being folded, and brush the outside of the completed pie.

Bake pies at 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes, turning them once to make them golden brown on both sides.

Pies may be frozen by layering and stacking them between sheets of waxed paper, making sure they do not come in contact with each other. Place in rectangular or square Tupperware containers for freezing.