This vegetable feta phyllo pastry is a great recipe to make on a weekend when you’re craving something hearty without making a big stew or a big plate of meat. There’s so many delicious flavours from the roasted vegetables, feta cheese and toasted pine nuts, when they all combine together it makes for a wonderful savoury pie.
While I’m not a huge fan of olives, I still included them, but diced them super fine so they just add to the flavour without being over-powering.
Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
8 garlic cloves minced
2 red peppers, chopped
1 Japanese eggplant, cubed
1 package of frozen spinach (500g)
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp ground pepper
¾ tbsp thyme
¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
8oz feta cheese, roughly crumbled
½ cup pine nuts toasted
1 package phyllo pastry
2 tbsp melted butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F
In a large bowl, toss together the prepared vegetables with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper.
Roast vegetables for 20 minutes on a baking sheet.
While your vegetables are roasting, toast 1/2 of pine nuts in a pan until golden.
Take your frozen spinach and follow the instructions on the package for cooking. Once cooked, strain, let cool and squeeze out as much water as possible using your hands.
Let your roasted vegetables cool and combine in a bowl with spinach, crumbled feta, pine nuts, chopped olives and thyme.
Unroll your phyllo pastry and cover with a damp paper towel to prevent it from drying out while you work. Working quickly, layer sheet by sheet while brushing melted butter in between each layer using a pastry brush. Layer about 4 sheets of phyllo pastry and then scoop on some of your vegetable feta mixture in a long line down the centre of your layered phyllo. Gently wrap up the pie like you’re wrapping a burrito, making sure the seam side is on the bottom of the baking sheet. Brush the top with melted butter and continue to make more pies.
Bake at 350°F for 35 minutes (or until golden brown).
Tip: If you have an olive oil sprayer, you can avoid melting butter and brushing it onto your phyllo, just spray a light mist of oil on each layer. It’s a lot faster and slightly healthier.
