Recipe: Cheese Casserole in Puff Pastry

Helen:

This dish is hearty enough to be a main course,
but can also be a side dish to a meat entree.

This is a very flexible recipe. Other
vegetables can be substituted for the
spinach, and other ingredients like
sauteed garlic and mushrooms can be added.

Filo dough can also be used instead of puff pastry.

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SPINACH (VEGETABLE) CHEESE CASSEROLE IN PUFF PASTRY

Yield: Serves 4 to 6.

**Ingredients---

10 oz Spinach, chopped(fresh or frozen)
1 c Cottage OR Ricotta cheese
1 c Feta cheese (crumbled and drained, any brine)
1/4 c Parmesan or romano cheese, grated
1/4 c Scallions, chopped
4 lg Eggs
2 T Butter
1 pn Salt
1 pn Pepper
12 oz Puff pastry (frozen pastry thawed to room temperature,
or homemade)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cook the spinach in boiling water. Drain,
rinse with cool water, and squeeze out as much moisture as you can.

Melt the butter in a small skillet. Cook the scallions until slightly
soft.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cheeses and the eggs. Mix well. Add
the spinach, the butter and scallions, the salt and pepper and mix again.

Lightly butter the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking dish. Roll
out a sheet of puff pastry on a floured surface to make a 14-inch square.
Roll out a second sheet to make a 9-inch square. Lay the bigger pastry
sheet in the buttered dish, draping the extra pastry over the edges.

Spread the spinach and cheese mixture evenly in the dish. Put the
remaining pastry sheet on top. Trim excess pastry if necessary and seal the
edges closed. Use scraps of pastry dough to decorate the top of the pie.
Brush top with additional melted butter if desired. Bake for 45 minutes at
350 degrees F. or until pastry is golden brown. Let rest for 10 minutes
before serving.

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NOTES:

*The casserole may be prepared, covered and refrigerated for up to 8 hours.

*As an alternative to puff pastry, you might try using sheets of filo dough, overlapped to make the bottom and top crusts.

*This can also be baked in a pie pan using filo dough.

*One way to cut down on the calories in this dish is to omit the bottom crust entirely.