Phyllo Strudel

Phyllo dough is in the frozen desserts or frozen pastery section at Safeway where I bought the one I used for this recipe. I had never used it before but it was not hard and it made me feel gormet. The thing with phyllo is that you have to have a really big (15X30 in) counter space open, which isn't a big deal, but heads up anyway. Basically with phyllo, you just put a sheet of dough down, brush melted "butter" on it, and then put another sheet down on top of it, "butter" and repeat about 8 times. Then cover the whole sheet with filling, fold the edges over one inch on all sides and then roll the whole thing like a jelly roll and bake it for 20 minutes or until it turns brown. Mine here is kind of blotchy but I was really proud of it. For filling I used:

• one 8oz can of diced beets
• two butternut squash chopped and cooked
• a portobello mushroom, chopped and cooked (in the microwave) with the squash
• about 1.5 cups frozen vegetable medley thawed
• a handfull of cooked wheatberries
• random spices including seasoning salt
• parsley flakes for spreading on top of the pastry

but you can basically use anything you want for filling. Someday I will do a dessert phyllo and let you all know how it goes. After mixing the filling, spread it out evenly on the layered phyllo sheets, then roll it up (see above) and cut 5-7 vents in the top with a sharp knife. Bake it until it's golden, let it sit for 5 minutes and then eat it (all- that is, I don't know how it refridgerates). Have fun!