Feta and Spinach Filo Pie

I haven’t done this for a long time so it was due. I used to use his book quite often. Recipe:

Ingredients:

100g nuts (I used sunflower and pumpkin nuts)
5 large eggs
300g feta cheese – crumbled
50g grated cheese
oregano
1 lemon zest
olive oil
1 knob of butter
500g fresh spinach
1 x 270g pack of filo pastry
cayenne pepper
nutmeg for grating

Process:

  • Preheat the oven to 200°C
  • Toast the nuts in a large ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat until golden.
  • Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl add feta, grated cheese, oregano and pepper
  • Add the toasted nuts and mix.
  • In the same frying pan, add a bit of olive oil and add half the spinach. Stir until wilted.
  • Add the lemon zest, grated nutmeg and piece of butter to the spinach.
  • Add the rest of spinach. Stir until all is wilted.
  • Then add the spinach to the egg mix. And clean the frying pan.
  • Take a piece of ovenproof paper roughly 1.5 bigger than your pan. Pass it through water so it is wet.
  • Lay it out on a clean work surface, rub lightly with oil and flatten out again.
  • Keep adding sheets of file on top of the ovenproof paper. Add a bit of oil and other spices in each layer. The idea is to cover the frying pan later. I used 6 layers in total.
  • Move the ovenproof paper and filo to the frying pan. Pour the egg/spinach mix. Add a bit more grated cheese.
  • Close the pie folding the edges (as it should be 1.5 bigger than the pan).
  • Fry at medium heat the pie so the bottom is crunchy. 1-2 minutes. Dont burn it!
  • Add some spices and olive oil on top.
  • Then move the pan to the oven for 20 minutes aprox or golden and crisp.

Quite happy with the result:

Narconomics

Very interesting book. It explains the mechanics of a drug cartel from the point of view of economics. I didnt think issues like supply chain, HR/PR, competition/merges, offshoring, R&D, online business, diversification, etc were part of drug cartel, as you only think of those as part of a licit business. There were many things that I didn’t know like the birth of “legal highs” in NZ (and Matt Bowden)

The goal is to fully understand the “business” because the current laws/actions, etc against drugs are clearly not working. So this way you can really offer a different approach to tackle the issue. You are not going to destroy them 100%. Most of the actions are at the source of the drug business: growing the plant (decrease in growing area causes minimum increase in retail price). But the book shows that is not effective and prevention (done in the consumer’s land: like rehab, education in jails, etc) is much more productive (for the same investment). As well as legalization (ie marijuana) as that brings control (“safer drugs”, tax revenue, etc) and put out of the market the dealers/cartels.

This is a difficult pill to swallow (punt intended) for governments and citizens but the writing is in the wall.