Individual Spinach Pies (Fatayah) Bet ya can't eat just one!

If you love spinach, these little delectables will become one of your favorite foods as a snack or a main course!
Use the same dough that is in the meat pie recipe.

Filling:
6 cups fresh baby spinach (this will be about three cup after washing)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup lemon juice
olive oil
salt
Lebanese pepper (or a nice Jamaican allspice)

Dough:
1 package dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbs. olive oil
3 cups of flour

Combine yeast, water, and sugar. Let this sit for about 10 minutes. Add flour slowly, about a half cup at a time, until you have a nice dough consistency. Depending on the weather, believe it or not, you may have to add a teaspoon of water to get the consistency right.  Separate into balls a little larger than golf balls. OK, there's the dough.

OR:
1 bag of pizza dough, rolled out and cut into 4" circles


Put the spinach in a bowl and cover well with water and salt. Let this sit for about 1/2 hour. The leaves will wilt..they are supposed to.

Next, take the spinach leaves after they have soaked, and squeeze them out in a colander. Then squeeze them out again. And then again. OK you can stop squeezing now. The point is, you want all the excess moisture out.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together then add to the spinach and mix well.

On 4 inch circles of dough, spoon about 2 tablespoons of spinach mixture into the middle. Fold up the edges and pinch them together to make a triangle. It starts like this:

Then fold in the third side.

Place these on a non stick baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Spray with olive oil spray. If you don't hide these, you won't have a chance to have seconds. Trust me.

Individual Meat Pies (Sfeeha)

These little lovers can be served as a meal or as appetizers. Versions of these can be found in many cultures, however we are going to make the Lebanese version of them. You may use pre-made dough or the kind that comes in the refrigerated tubes called dinner rolls. OR you can make your own dough. It is a bread dough if you are going to make your own. OK, OK..I will include the dough recipe.

Dough:
1 package dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbs. olive oil
3 cups of flour

Combine yeast, water, and sugar. Let this sit for about 10 minutes. Add flour slowly, about a half cup at a time, until you have a nice dough consistency. Depending on the weather, believe it or not, you may have to add a teaspoon of water to get the consistency right.  Separate into balls a little larger than golf balls. OK, there's the dough. Set aside while you make the sfeeha.

Filling:

1 pound ground lamb (yes, you can use ground beef instead)
2 tomatoes, chopped small
1 medium onion, chopped very fine (processor works well)
1/4 cup pine nuts or sometimes called pignolia nuts
1 tsp. Lebanese pepper (if you can't find this, use ground Jamaican allspice)
1 tbsp. Salt
Olive oil spray

Combine all ingredients except olive oil spray and dough in a large bowl. Mix well with your hands until everything is blended evenly. Using a sautee pan on medium heat, cook until meat turns brown. This is the sfeeha mixture.

Roll the dough out flat on a floured cutting board. Put 2 tablespoons of sfeeha mixture in the middle of each one. Pinch in two sides to begin to make a triangle shape of dough around the meat. (Refer to the picture) Pinch edges together.

Place these on a non stick cookie sheet or grease a cookie sheet and place them on that. Spray with olive oil to make them look so pretty. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Watch them fly off the table!

Lebanese Rolled Grape Leaves (Warak inib mishwee)

These are rolled grape leaves with ground lamb, and are very different from the Greek style of rolled grape leaves. They are served warm, not cold, although I eat them cold as well and are served with plain whole milk yogurt, (vanilla flavor is delicious with them, too). We used to pick our own grape leaves because you can only use the ones that grow in the wild.
Do not ever, ever use the ones that grapes are grown from. Those are tough bad boys and they will taste horrible! If you don't want to pick them, most supermarkets now sell them packed into jars. There are about 50 in a jar, so I buy 7 for my family. Just kidding. But they would eat them if I did.
If you buy them in jars, soak and rinse them very, very well in cold water several times to get the salt brine off of them.

50 grape leaves
1 tsp. salt
Juice of 3 lemons (save the lemon halves)
1 cup Uncle Ben's Rice...uncooked or a long grain white rice
1 pound ground lamb about 80% lean
Lebanese pepper ( as you all know by now, you can use ground Jamaican allspice)

If you are using fresh grape leaves, soak them in hot water for about 15 minutes to make them soft. If you are using jarred, follow instructions above to prep them. Rinse and drain thoroughly, then snip the stems off. Or have the kids do it.

In the bottom of a large saucepan, place 3 or 4 grape leaves to cover the bottom of the pan. My mother recently began to use sliced potatoes in the bottom of the pan to line it, so you can do either one. You can also use lamb bones. Why do this step? So the bottom layer of leaves won't burn.

Mix together the lamb, rice, salt and pepper and mix with your clean hands until everything is evenly distributed.

Lay a leaf out flat on a board. Add an oblong piece of the lamb mixture, like in the picture. Then turn the sides of the leaf in over the filling.
Turn the bottom up over the filling and tightly, but not too tightly, roll the leaf toward the top:

OK. Now, you want to leave the tip of the leaf at the bottom of the roll so it does not unwrap. That is how you place it in the pot or saucepan. With the tip of the leaf down. Don't roll them too loosely, they will unravel as they cook and you would have grape leaf and lamb stew. Line them up in the pan and alternate the direction of each layer.

Sprinkle with salt when you have all the leaves rolled and in the pan. Press an inverted dish over the top of them. Yes, make it on the heavier side. Helps keep them in place. Add water to cover dish. Add the lemon juice and the halves of lemons you squeezed. Cook these on medium-low heat for 35 minutes. Add more lemon juice, if desired. I desire this, but I absolutely love lemon juice.
Place in a serving dish, add yogurt on the side, and watch them disappear! Personally, I could live on these and tabouleh for every meal for the rest of my life. And don't try to save any leftover for lunch the next day. They won't be there.

Fahtoosh (Arabic Bread Salad) YUM!

Fatoosh is a delicious and refreshing salad made with fresh ingredients and uses toasted Arabic bread. Syrian or Arabic Bread is similar to pita bread, it's just much thinner. It is also unleavened. This bread is a staple in an Arabic home, using it for eating much of our food, instead of using utensils. There are kinds that are so thin, you can almost see through them and they are about 2 feet in diameter. So don't get your knickers in a twist when you see Arabic people using their hands to eat.

2 loaves Syrian bread
1/2 bunch green onions
1/2 bunch fresh parsley
1 cucumber
1 bunch fresh mint
2 tbsp. fresh thyme
1 tsp. salt
1/2 teaspoon, yeah, you guessed it, ground Jamaican allspice unless you have Syrian pepper
Juice of 3 lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
Kalamata olives

Pull the two sides of the Arabic bread apart. Toast them lightly under a broiler, but watch carefully! They toast very quickly!! Let it cool, then break or cut bread into bite-size pieces. Chop and cut all the vegetables into small pieces, too. Mix bread with salad in a bowl. (you can toast the bread lightly under the broiler if you watch it diligently because it will burn quickly if you don't. I do this because I like it that way.) Add salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil and mix well. Add olives and my guess is you will smack your lips and your eyes will light up and you will have discovered something you have longed for all your life!