Spring time spanakopita with spinach, foraged wild garlic, nettles and garlic mustard.

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I decided to add some flowers and herbs between the top two sheets of filo pastry to look like a stained glass pattern. Once baked you can see a faint pattern.

It is more noticeable to the eye, but hard to capture on camera.

This pie came about thanks to some sorry looking ingredients in the fridge that needed using up.

There was spinach, a half zested lemon a leek and some herbs that had to be used so i deiced on this pie as i had feta and filo.

I only had half a bag of spinach, so decided to bulk up the greens with some foraged wild garlic and nettles from our walk and it was delicious.

During lock down i have been baking a lot of pies as a way to use left overs in the fridge. All the ingredients in this were past their best and begging to be used and i thought of a spanakopita.

I am a bit obsessed with using edible flowers at the moment and used some to decorate another pie here.

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Spring time Spanakopita

Layers of filo are placed in a tin then the filling is added and a few more layers of pastry are added on top.

A great fuss free pie.

Apart from frying off the onion, leek and greens there is very little effort.

Stinging nettles

When foraging for stinging nettles in spring, pick only the small, top few leaves. Wear gloves when picking or handling them.

The nettles have to be boiled or steamed so they no longer sting, then they are safe to handle. see some tips here

Nettles are packed with iron, and have a similar flavour to spinach, so i often use them in spring in recipes that call for spinach.

If you are not fond of nettles then just use spinach.

The wild garlic and garlic mustard added a lovely flavour and went will with the parsley and dill and lemon zest. If wild garlic or ramps are no longer available you can use a garlic clove.

The harsh light that always shines in this room at dinner time, was perfect to show how the flowers look in the pastry. It looks like an embroidered handkerchief.

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Spring time spanakopita before baked

Before the spring time spanakopita is baked you can see the stained glass design really well.

It was an experiment so i was not sure how it would look once baked.

Pansy, calendula, wild garlic, nettles and herbs are arranged in a pattern.

I know from other edible flower experiments that yellow and orange flowers hold their colour well in the heat of the oven.

Spring time spanakopita Once baked

Once baked the flaky pasty reveals the beauty underneath. I don’t know if its just me, but i think its really beautiful.

It looks so fragile on the outside and broken but you can just see its beauty trying to show through.

To remind me not to judge things by what they look like on the outside, as beauty lies within.

Sorry for getting philosophical. Lock down has given me too much time to think.

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The recipe

I adapted a spinach spanakopita recipe and added wild garlic and nettles.