Spana-what?

I made a new recipe that I had never tried before to bring in for a pot luck at work on Friday. I generally don't make new recipes for public consumption; I almost always test them first. I was also taking a risk bringing Spanakopita. Nobody knew what Spanakopita was when I put I wrote it on the sign up sheet, and people generally stick to what they know food-wise. There is nothing sadder than the pariah dish sitting alone and untouched at a pot luck. But I trusted the reviews on the Food Network and went ahead with the recipe. Success! They were all gone by the end of the day. One of my co-workers even ate three (that's my girl)!

One caveat, it took me two hours to make these, but I am slow at cooking for some reason. Rachael Ray's 30 minutes meals are 45 minute meals in my house. The recipe isn't hard to make, it's just time consuming to brush the phyllo sheets with butter, fold them up, bake, etc. You can, however, make Spanakopita in a pan, which would be quicker- just layer the sheets of phyllo with the spinach mixture instead of folding them up and cut into squares to serve. Baking time will be longer, but it's hands off time of course.

The recipe - here you go- calls for two pounds of baby spinach and one pound of phyllo dough. I used one pound of spinach and two packages of President's Choice frozen phyllo dough and the amounts worked out perfectly. Also, I didn't have quite enough butter, so I cut it with some olive oil, which turned out fine- I couldn't tell the difference. Sorry the photo isn't great- I forgot to take a photo until there was only half a Spanakopita left (dude, I was up until 11:30 at night making them and I had to get up at 6:30 am).