Spanakopita

This is, as I'm sure you know, being the well-travelled sophisticates that you are, is a Greek spinach, feta and filo pastry pie.

It's extremely easy, very delicious and looks like it was way harder to make than it actually is. Lovely on its own if you've got a tedious veggie round, or as a side with grilled chicken. Not very autumnal, but I refuse to be constrained by such bourgeoise ideas.

Spanakopita

To fit an 8in x 11in pan. Would feed 4 as a main and 6 as a side

400g baby spinach
600g feta, broken up into smallish pieces
1 pack filo pastry
salt
pepper
2 eggs
nutmeg
3 shallots, chopped
butter
a handful of pine nuts

1 Fry off the shallots and then add the spinach. Cover and leave to wilt, which will take about 5 mins.

2 Let the spinach cool a bit OR add the feta straight from the fridge. You may need to bash it all up a bit with the edge of some kind of cooking implement until it's all vaguely combined.

3 Lightly toast the pine nuts if you can be arsed and add them, the beaten eggs, salt, pepper and a couple of scrapes of nutmeg, but don't go crazy on the nutmeg because it's basically horrible if you can really taste it. And poisonous if you eat too much. There you go: a fact.

4 Brush the base of your pan with butter and lay down 6 or 7 sheets of filo. It's important to brush between each layer with melted butter, otherwise the layers sort of separate from each other while they're cooking, which is annoying.

5 Spoon in your, by now very horrible-looking, spinach and cheese mixture and then lay more sheets of filo on top of that. I say go mad with the filo here - I only used 4 layers which wasn't enough. I'd say even up to 10 sheets. Don't forget to brush between each sheet with butter and brush the top as well.

5 Cook at 180C for 40 minutes. Finish off with 5 minutes at 200C if the top isn't looking very brown.

My friend AC says her mum makes it with a garlicky yoghurt sauce, which sounds pretty nice.