Housewarming Party & Spanokapitas

The Spatula is another great gift from Foodbuzz.

I have been busy in the kitchen for the last two weeks making appetizers, desserts and testing cocktails for my husband and my Housewarming Party & my 30th Birthday Party, which we combined into one event. Although we missed the pleasure of seeing some of our out of town friends, we were happy with the turn out. We even managed to squeeze 20 people in our small quaint new pad. Thanks to all that made the night a great time.

I love organizing food & drink for parties, even though it always gets a bit hectic at crunch time. We (my husband and I) decided that serving savoury appetizers and a couple cocktail testers would be a nice touch to the party. It stood to good reason that I should make some "tried & tested" appetizers, so I used some recipes from the "The Best of Vanilla Bean Cafe", as well as some recipes I love but have yet to post. However, I could not resist making a couple new items for this party som e of which were inspired by my fellow foodies.

My next posts will consist of all the new recipes I made for the housewarming party and perhaps highlighting a compilation of "Vanilla Bean Cafe" recipes.

Menu

Chicken Empanadas
Spanakopitas
Lemon Garlic Shrimp
Cucumber with Smoked Salmon
Dips (Roasted Red Pepper, Spicy Hummus, Hot Artichoke Dip)

Vegetables, Bread, Crackers for Dipping
Cheese Platter with Salami, Fruit & Nuts

Apple-Raisin Chutney

Tostitos with Salsa and Guacamole
Cheesecake Pops
Mini Kahlua Truffles

Pomegranate Champagne Spritzer

Cranberry Martini

Spanakopitas

Spanakopita is a Greek pastry with a filling of spinach, feta cheese, onions, egg and seasoning. . The filling is wrapped in layers of phyllo pastry. It can be made and served as a pie or folded into triangular shapes and served for appetizers. I found various recipes in my search, but decided to make my own filling using different ingredients from different recipes and played with the measurements until it tasted good. The pastry was crispy golden brown and the filling had a creamy texture with wonderful flavors, the lemon zest was a great addition. The only glitch was that apparently I do not know how to fold a flag. After folding about 6 of them totally wrong I figured it out and had to start all over again, this time they turned out right.

10-12 phyllo pastry sheets
1/2 cup of butter, melted
1 lbs spinach (regular or baby)
2 cups feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 garlic minced
sweet white onion, finely chopped
zest of one lemon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
ground pepper to taste

In a small skillet add 1 T butter and melt over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook for 5 mins. Set aside to cool.

Melt 1 T butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add spinach and cook until wilted and tender, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and cool, about 10 minutes. Squeeze handfuls of spinach to remove as much liquid as possible, then coarsely chop. Transfer to a bowl and stir in feta, parmesan, lemon zest, garlic and onion mixture, nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Melt remaining 1 stick butter in a small saucepan, then cool.

Cover phyllo stack with a dampened kitchen towel.

Take 1 phyllo sheet from stack and arrange on a work surface with a long side nearest you (keeping remaining sheets covered) and brush with butter. Top with another phyllo sheet and brush with more butter. Cut buttered phyllo stack crosswise into 6 (roughly 12- by 2 3/4-inch) strips.

Put a heaping teaspoon of filling near 1 corner of a strip on end nearest you, then fold corner of phyllo over to enclose filling and form a triangle. Continue folding strip (like a flag), maintaining triangle shape.

Put triangle, seam side down, on a large baking sheet and brush top with butter.
Bake triangles until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.

Frezing: You can freeze in air tight container for months. Do not cook before freezing. Cook from frozen.