Lambs­quarters­opita Recipe:

By Natalie Bogwalker director of Wild Abundance, a primitive skills school for adults.

This is my personal adaptation from the renowned Greek dish, spanikopita.

• 10 cups fresh, chopped lambs quarter leaves and tops (you can substitute spinach or nettle tops
• for some or all of this quantity)
• 1 package filo dough
• 1.5 c extra virgin olive oil
• 12 ounces crumbled feta cheese
• 8 ounces firm tofu
• 1⁄2 cup walnuts, or pine nuts toasted and chopped
• 1⁄2 cup almond butter
• 1⁄4 c fresh lemon juice
• 1T sea salt
• Large cast iron or sauté pan with lid
• Baking pan. They make aluminum baking sheets with sides that are the perfect fit for filo dough, these are ideal, but any casserole dish will also work, it will just involve cutting the filo.
  

• Optional­ clean cooking brush or paint brush for applying oil to filo.

Wash the tofu and squeeze in a towel to dry . Heat 1⁄4 c olive oil in large frying pan. Crumble tofu into pan, and sauté until tofu is slightly browned and dry. Add salt, stir. Add chopped lambs quarters and cover. Cook until lambs quarters just become limp. Turn off heat. Add feta, toasted nuts, and almond butter to complete filling.

Grease baking sheet with olive oil apply 2 layers at a time of filo dough, lightly brushing olive oil with brush or fingers between sets of filo dough. Continue this layering until you have used 2/3 of the package of filo dough.

Apply filling to filo dough. Continue as before layering two sheets of filo dough with a light layer of olive oil between until there is no more filo. Apply a thin layer of olive oil on top of the whole conglomeration.

Use knife to cut through first few layers of filo to create a grid that yields pieces of your preferred size.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until the top layer of filo has slightly browned.

Remove from oven and allow to cool. The flavors in the lambs­quarters­opita will continue to meld the longer you let it sit. I like to serve it at least 3 hours after removing it from the oven, though it will keep in the fridge for up to a week. The flavor will continue to get better, but the texture will become more mushy the longer that you wait.

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