From France to... Greece?

Last night, Peta and Jim decided to make a few cocktails and then cook spanakopita, essentially a spinach and feta pie with thin phyllo dough.

We didn't have any ouzo to match up with the spanakopita and we're in need of a trip to BevMo to get other types of liquor. All we really had was some brandy. Hmm. What to do? We had read about the French 75 and had done a taste test two weeks before. There is agreement as to the meaning of the name: the "75" refers to a popular artillery used in the late 1800s - early 1900s. I like the story of the supposed creator, WWI ace Raoul Lufbery, liking champagne but needed more of a kick -- the kind of kick that you'd get from a Canon de 75 Modèle; however, there is a question as to whether gin or cognac is the liquor of choice. We like them both, but they are totally different drinks. We'll take the original French 75 to mean a cognac/champagne cocktail, although the gin drink is good as well.

For the spanakopita, we used Tyler Florence's recipe here.

Changes made:

• We didn't use any coriander or chives and we didn't sprinkle the oregano in between the layers of phyllo but rather added it into the green mixture.
• We used a mixture of butter and EVOO for spreading between phyllo layers.
• We added wine instead of lemon since we ran out
• We added some aging puréed kale to the green mixture.
• Did not make triangle but went with the lasagna style
  

Observations:
We cooked the spanakopita for 25 minutes at 350, but had to add time and increase the temperature to 375 until the layers had separated (puffed up) and browned.

Pretty tasty in general, but it took way longer than we had anticipated. This is not a weekday meal! Making some fried rice today with leftover rice from the bul gogi we made yesterday.