YUM.
If you were to Wikipedia "spanakopita", you'd likely find something to the exent of:
Spanakopita is a traditional Greek spinach pie.
What?
Spinach.............................pie?!
Picky eaters and pie lovers, please don't hate me. Not to diss Wikipedia but Spanakopita is NOT pie. First off, you use phyllo dough which (if you read the previous post) we know is completely and utterly different from pie crust. Also, the filling is this fantastic combination of spinach and FETA CHEESE instead of your average fruity pie fillings.
**Brief interruption for some cheesy jokes and cartoons:
**Brief interruption for some cheesy jokes and cartoons:
Which search engine do mice use?
Ask Cheese.
What do you call cheese that isn't yours?
Nacho cheese.
The Packers Mascarpwned the Steelers this year.
Oh man. That cheese joke was whey over my head.
Anyway, FETA CHEESE is this amazing, creamy, salty Greek cheese that gets all ooey and gooey and melty inside the spanakopita and just tastes fantastic. It's also great on salads, btw.
YUM
I wasn't too keen on the idea of making the traditional Spanakopita pie because it looks like it would be awfully messy...
(Of course they make it look all neat and perfect here but things rarely turn out looking as good as pictures on the internet might suggest. It's like those McDonald's ads that make the burgers look like angelic works of art and then you order one and it looks like......not that.)
(yeah right.)
So, in the interest of not failing (see Demotivator below), I decided to make Spanakopockets instead.
And I used rainbow chard because [a] it's beautiful [b] it's nutritious and (largely) [c] we had some in the fridge. Convenient. (Spinach would be just dandy too, in fact Spanakopita is typically made with spinach)
rainbow chard
Ain't it perty?
Chard is chock full of all kinds of vitamins and minerals SUCH AS:
vitamin K
manganese
magnesium
vitamin A
vitamin C
vitamin E
potassium
iron
fiber
copper
calcium
tryptophan
vitamin B12
vitamin B6
protein
phosphorus
vitamin B1
zinc
folate
biotin
vitamin B3
vitamin B5
plus antioxidants like:
kaempferol
syringic acid
and phytonutrients (yay!) like:
betanin
isobetanin
betanidin
isobetanidin
histamine
betaxanthin
alanine
tyramine-betaxanthin
3-methoxytyramine−betaxanthin
I'm not going to go into the details of what each of these vitamins and minerals DO (because, quite frankly, I don't know. If you want to (know, that is), read this: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=16 ). In a nutshell, they help keep your bones strong and your skin healthy and they destroy antioxidants that cause cancer.
And if that's not already good enough, chard is really, really tasty. Especially when combined with cheese. Can't go wrong there. The cheese equation is pretty simple, actually:
cheese + anything = 
chard, feta, dill
chard, feta, and dill on fillo dough
It's really simple to assemble these Spanakopockets, actually. Kind of time consuming but in the end it's 173% worth it. The filling is also super tasty just eaten plain or spread on bread and made into Greek bruschetta?
Excuse me while I go eat some chard.
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