soooo stinking good.

I have read a gazillion books lately and some of them have been AMAZING.  I guess that's one good thing to having Kent gone- I am getting in a lot of late night reading!  if you haven't signed up for goodreads yet- you are crazy.  Such an amazing place to find good books.  My favorites right now are; 'The Invisible Wall', 'Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet', and 'Tallgrass'.

And last night I made Baklava. Thanks to the internet and suggestions from a true greek (thanks, yaya!) it turned out AMAZINGLY.  All last week I searched Toledo for some great baklava to share at book club. Our book is 'Persepolis', an Iranian  memoir, and I wanted to do a middle eastern theme.  Hummus, pita, baklava, etc., but baklava is SO expensive.  I love the stuff so I decided to just make my own.  It was far easier than I ever anticipated and was really delicious. 

If you decide to make it- increase the sauce by 1.5 times and cut the butter in half.  Plus I melted the butter and put it in my 'I can't believe it's not butter" spray container and that made it SO easy.  And my phyllo dough came in two 8 oz smaller wraps and that helped!

Recipe

• 1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough
• 1 pound chopped nuts
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.
2. Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan. Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.
3. Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.
4. Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Serve in cupcake papers. This freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it is wrapped up.