This can't be "temple food."

I'm still in the Temple Food mode, but I want to give you a recipe that shows you how you can transform a dish that you would never think of, when you're "abstaining" into something that you can in fact eat.

Spanokopita. Yes, spanokopita. That wonderful Greek dish that you don't make, because you think it's too hard, and you don't eat because you think it's too rich, and that you always feel disappointed about when you get it in a restaurant.

I agree with being disappointed in restaurants. And I agree that it's rich. But you know what? It's not hard to make. And there's a very good rule for taking a rich dish, and making it acceptable for "temple days". Ready for the secret: eat less of it.

Now, there are various ways of making sure that you do this. Here's mine. In my opinion, spanokopita that is not right out of the oven is dead spanokopita. So what I do when we're doing "Temple Days," is to put the spanokopita in the oven, and when it's just about done, serve a first course. Normally, we eat our salad after we eat the main dish, but in a situation like this, salad first is a good idea. Or soup. Just something to take up some room. And make less. You can make enough spanokopita to feed a small party. You don't have to. Many recipes can be cut in half without any problem. And change the proportions a little. Use more greens than the recipe calls for, and as I did in the scallop recipe, cut back on a few things a little.

Spanokopita calls for phyllo dough, which scares people. It shouldn't. Don't even think about making your own. If you happen to have a grandmother who has a good hand for it, by all means, have her show you. But if you don't, speak to a friend who is Middle Eastern or Greek and find out what brand they use (no one makes it from scratch anymore). If they say something like "but you can only get it at a store 250 miles from here, and I go once a month," ask them to bring you back some the next time they go.

Okay, here we go. You'll need about half a pound of phyllo. That's half of a package. And here, I'm going to be very wasteful. I throw out the rest, because it's too much of a hassle to keep it. If you know someone who'd be interested, share it. Or make a BIG one and share it. But if you're like me, you can't have the monstrous plate of that wonderful stuff around.

You'll need feta, a soft white cheese too, greens, eggs and butter. Now, I have made spanokopita with cottage cheese, with soft Greek cheese, and my favorite soft cheese is good quality ricotta. So get some of that (and again, NOT the stuff at the grocer that ends in "O." It's vile). You also need some good feta cheese. How do you know it's good? TASTE IT. Again, don't buy the packaged stuff. It's awful. Go to a good cheese store, and ask for a taste. If they won't give you one, go to another store.

To make a reasonable portion of this wonderful dish, you need half a pound of each of the cheeses. Break up the feta and mix it in with the ricotta. Taste it. It should be salty enough, but if it isn't, add some salt. If you are so inclined (I'm not), you can add some chopped scallions too. Now, add six eggs and mix this thoroughly.

Now you need your greens. For it to be spanokopita, you really should be using spinach. Well, at the Farmer's Market this weekend, I bought a bunch of "decorative party kale," as I call it. You know, those purple "ornamental cabbages." Well, they are edible. I cut away the leaves, and cooked them in boiling salted water, for fifteen minutes (that's a long time, but kale is a tough green). When it was nice and soft, I noticed that the purple had leached out and it was green like regular kale. When it was cool, I chopped it up, and added it to the cheese and eggs.

Now, here's how I do it, and there are differences of opinon on the layering technique. I take about eight sheets of phyllo, and I cut them down the middle, so that I now have sixteen squares.

Here's where the "OH MY GOD THAT IS SO RICH" comes into it. You need to melt a stick of unsalted butter. And brush a little of it on a small, glass or ceramic pan (9x9, or 8x8), and then put down your first half sheet of phyllo. Tradition calls for painting each sheet with butter. And it's good that way, but it's not temple food. So I alternate. I put down a second sheet, and brush that, and repeat, brushing every second sheet. Then, after I've got eight half sheets down, I add ALL of my filling. Then I cover it with the remaining eight half sheets. You then need to butter brush the top one, and make some really serious slashes through the top. This is going to bubble up, and you want to keep it neat.

Get it in the oven, on a baking sheet, and let it cook at 400 (a fairly high temperature, but you've got a fairly thick mass here), for 30-45 minutes. Is it done? You can check by seeing if anything has bubbled out, and if it is, is it firm? What you're trying to do is cook the eggs, because everything else has been cooked already, and eggs firm up when they're cooked. If it's not done, let it go for a bit longer, and then, let it rest for about ten minutes before you cut SMALL portions of it.

And there it is. It's richer than standard temple food, but use smaller plates, or anything you can to limit pigging out on this wonderful dish. And when you've finished your repentance for overindulging on the holidays, make a big one, and dig right on in.

You can go back to carrots and lentils whenever you need to!