Loaded Baked Spinach Pie

Tonite I made one of my favorite Papa recipes, his spinach pies. Growing up I used to love walking in his house and smelling either spinach pies or his pizza baking in the oven. Since his passing, I was determined to keep carrying on his recipes. I guess you can sorta call it a recipe or not because there isn't exact measurements of everything; its all by taste which I always say is the best term of measurement. Please feel free to add or omit any of the ingredients in your spinach pie. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does.

Ingredients: Preheat oven 400 degrees
- 1 package of fresh bakery dough          - 1 bag of fresh spinach
-1 small can of black olives                    - 1/2 stick of margarita pepparoni or any other brand of stick
- 1-2 hard boiled eggs                        - 1-2 Tbsp of minced garlic and parmesan/romano cheese
     - EVOO and S&P

Dough
First thing is to spread lots of olive oil in your pizza pan or stone, which I had used. If you use stone make sure you put it in the oven and heat it up for a few minutes, it helps spread the dough out. Make sure you have plenty of olive oil on the bottom so the dough doesnt stick. Next you want to spread the dough to whichever shape your pan is, but let some of the dough hang over the pan because you need the length for folding. You can see in the picture below I have it hanging over just slightly. Spread more oil on the top of the dough and rub it in with your fingers and make sure you get the edges too!

The Filling
Steam your package of spinach on the stove top. Use the entire package because it strinks down quite a bit. Drain the spinach really well, you may have to squeeze it to get all that water out. While its cooling for a couple minutes, chop up the 1/2 stick of pepparoni and the can of olives. I only used a half a can of olives for mine, but i left the pieces a bit larger. Take the yolk out of the hard boiled eggs, and dice up the egg whites. Once everything is chopped up, mix the spinach, eggs, pepparoni and olives all in a medium sized bowl. Now add the 1-2 Tbsp of minced garlic, olive oil, cheese and S&P, and mix really well. Here is where your taste buds come in handy, taste test to see what it needs. You want to put enough olive oil in it to enhance the flavors better. After its all mixed, spread it evenly in the middle of your dough.

Now you want to take one side of the dough and fold it over, pinching the ends together. Rub more olive oil on top to make your pie nice and brown. Make sure you add oil on the ends and pinch it together so it doesn't split apart in the oven.

Put your pie in the oven set at 400 degrees and let it bake for about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on your pie because some ovens cook it faster than others. You want it to be a nice golden brown on the top.

Cool off your pie for a good 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Yummy yummy!! Mangia :)
Thank you Papa!!!!