My Mom used to make something similar. I do not have measurements as she never measured anything, but this is what she did: Brown and crumble (leaving fairly large crumbles) good quality sweet or hot Italian sausage and let cool. Saute spinach in a little olive oil and garlic; set aside to cool. Mix ricotta with egg, parsley, grated parm/romano mix, shredded mozzarella or provolone and salt pepper to taste. Fold sausage and spinach into ricotta mixture. Stuff mixture into either homemade or prepared frozen Italian bread dough, seal and bake. Other versions of this that she made were: Spinach and cheese: spinach, onion, garlic and shredded mozz/parm/romano Spinach/lemon: as above without the cheese, but with lemon juice. Cauliflower; soft cooked cauliflower with garlic, onion, tomato, parsley and Italian black olives or Kalamata. This was one of my favorites. The tomato was just enough to flavor it, but not make it "saucy" Fresh tomato, onion, cheese: lots of caramelized onion, fresh tomato, garlic, LOTS of fresh basil cooked down to a very, very thick sauce. (she also used this as a topping for grilled or pan fried swordfish or tuna steaks - Yum!) Mix in mozzarella or provolone before stuffing bread. Broccoli cheese: soft cooked broccoli, onion, garlic and mozz/provo/parm. She would sometimes add the broccoli to the above ricotta/sausage mix, which was also a good combination. For Easter, she always made one with lamb: Cut up leg of lamb into fairly small dice. Saute with onions, garlic, salt and pepper. Add chopped tomato; just enough to flavor, you don't want it saucy. Add thawed frozen peas and chopped fresh parsley. Mix all together and stuff in to bread. I grew up eating all of these. Mom usually made her own bread dough, but would use Rhodes Italian when she didn't have a lot of time. She has Alzheimers/Dementia now and can no longer cook. I sure do miss her cooking. Somehow, even though I make things with the same ingredients, they never taste the same. When I was first married, I had her over to direct my making of tomato sauce with meatballs. She instructed me on exactly what to put in and how much, but it still didn't taste quite like hers; very close, but not the same.

Here's one for a spinach pie! Can't see how crust would work with the squares. This one looks easy enough! SPINACH PIE 1 (10 oz.) frozen pie crust 1 (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach 1 egg 1 (8 oz.) Mozzarella 4 oz. ricotta 4 oz. feta (optional) 1 sm. chopped onion Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brown pie crust for about 5 to 10 minutes. Squeeze the excess water out of the defrosted chopped spinach until dry. Mix all the ingredients above and pour them into pie crust and cook for about 35-45 minutes until golden brown on top. You can use more or less of the cheese depending on how cheesy you like it.

LPink, both my mom & I have baked just the filling for our family recipe's spanakopita. And with good results. Nowadays, when I make it (with or without the fillo), I use low fat cottage cheese. In fact, to make it lower in sodium, I use the no-salt-added cottage cheese from Safeway (which is very low fat too). I also cut the feta from 8 oz. down to only 4 oz. Here's just the filling portion of the recipe: Spanakopita Filling: 2 packages frozen chopped spinach 4 - 5 eggs 1 large carton cottage cheese 8 ounces. Feta cheese 1 bunch green onions 1 tablespoon dried mint 1 tablespoon dried dill weed 2 tablespoons dry, unflavored breadcrumbs Filling Preparation: â¢Thaw spinach; drain & squeeze dry â¢Beat eggs â¢Chop green onions (my mom always sauteed the green onions for a bit; I'm too lazy) â¢Chop/crumble Feta cheese â¢Combine spinach, eggs, cottage cheese, Feta cheese, green onions, mint, dill weed, and breadcrumbs in large bowl. Mix well. Bake pita at 350ð for 45 - 60 minutes; pita should be light, golden brown. When baked by itself, the fillilng is very spinachy and pretty dense, but that's how I like it. Also, regarding fillo preparation, my mom & grandmother only brushed butter on the top fillo layer. They said it helped the pita to brown. But all the other layers were brushed with olive oil. Several times when I found myself in a hurry, exceptionally lazy, or overly calorie conscious, I used PAM olive oil spray for most of the fillo layers. The pan was brushed with real olive, as well as the first couple of layers. Then PAM spray, and finally a good dousing of butter on the top layer. FWIW, we hardly ever make spanakopitakia (the triangles). We much prefer pan pita. I've made the recipe below several times too, using the same no-salt-added/low fat cottage cheese. I usually omit the butter since it doesn't seem necessary -- the cheddar cheese exudes enough fat on its own. Deep Dish Spinach Cheese Bake MQmoi via Woodie2 1 lb cottage cheese 3 eggs, beaten 1 C cheddar cheese, grated 3 T butter, cut into bits 1 pckge frozen chopped spinach, thawed & drained 3 T flour Lightly combine cottage cheese, eggs, grated cheese, & butter. Add spinach flour, & salt to taste. Place in buttered casserole dish (6.5x8.5x2 in deep). Bake at 350 degrees for 45 mins. to 1 hr. until golden brown. Pour off butter that has risen to surface. And, finally, I've made the Bisquick spinach pie a few times too. I use my own homemade baking mix and the Safeway no-salt-added cottage cheese. I usually flavor it with dill, so it tastes more like spanakopita. It's linked below. Here is a link that might be useful: Bisquick Impossibly Easy Spinach-Parmesan Pie

Jasdip, I googled this and it seems as though it doesn't really matter: It's happened to all of us at least once -- you have either fresh or frozen spinach on hand, and your chosen spinach recipe calls for the one you're missing. The good news is that, for the most part, it doesn't matter. But there are certain times when one suits a recipe better than the other. We basically live to think about these things for you guys. Generally, you'll want to use fresh spinach when either texture or color are of importance -- salads, pestos, frittatas and soups usually fit this bill. Frozen spinach gets its due when quantity and moisture are of paramount concern. One box of frozen spinach can amount to up to three bunches of fresh spinach when it gets cooked down, so when spinach is your main ingredient (like in spanakopita), you really can't beat frozen spinach for efficiency's sake. Also, defrosted frozen spinach makes life much easier when you need to squeeze all the moisture out of your spinach, like when you're making dips or stuffing things with spinach.