A Greek acquaintance of mine, who grew up on Spanikopita-although his family more frequently called it zelnik, gave this recipe his stamp of approval…to the point of saying it was better than his sister’s… even though he wasn’t convinced it would be good since I was doing it in a deep dish instead of on a baking sheet. So even though this uses a 9×9 dish feel free to try the baking sheet method if you want.

I don’t think it is possible to ruin this dish as far as the ingredients go. I have changed my ingredients and quantities with the end result always being delicious. The most important part is to take the time to squeeze the juices out of the spinach/onion mixture and baking it long enough so that the phyllo dough is nice and golden brown. You want a crispy pastry not a soggy one.

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I made this for my brother’s birthday and added a special ingredient of the seeds from one vanilla bean. While they are expensive I recommend buying in bulk if you have the opportunity. Then once you scrape the bean throw the pod in a Mason jar and fill with sugar to make your own vanilla sugar. This works very well and re-flavors the sugar when you keep adding new sugar to the jar. Plus you can give it as a gift.

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