Gibanica and Settling the Old West

Serbian Dessert

GIBANICA
(Cheese Pie)

INGREDIENTS

6 eggs
2 cups cottage cheese
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
1 pound filo (phyllo) dough

SPECIAL UTENSILS

9″-x-13″ baking pan or casserole dish

Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Separate eggs. Beat egg whites until fluffy. Add egg yolks, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and sour cream to mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk or fork. Fold in egg whites. Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Melt butter using low heat. Brush baking pan with 2 tablespoons melted butter.

Place 2 sheets filo dough in baking pan. Drizzle 2 tablespoons melted butter over filo. Spread ¼ cup egg/cheese mix on top. Gently crinkle 2 filo sheets into accordion-like balls. Dip accordion balls into cheese/egg mix from bowl until lightly coated. Place coated accordion-like filo balls over flat filo sheets in pan. Repeat until you have 2 filo sheets remaining.

Top with remaining 2 filo sheets. Brush top filo sheets with remaining butter and cheese/egg mix. Bake in over at 360 degrees for 50 minutes or until top is reddish, golden brown. Serve warm or let cool.

TIDBITS

1) Many different groups of people settled America’s Old West. The most obvious types were men and women. It’s obvious now, but no historian before me had ever mentioned it.

2) Chinese settled Western America, but Irish, Swedes, and Germans left Europe to come to the New World’s eastern shores and kept going until they hit the Great American Plains. For a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Long-ago settled Americans from the east pulled up stakes and joined those traveling west. For such a drastic measure as the only way to avoid house calls from salesmen offering to extended their wagon’s extended warranty.

3) However, Serbian cheese pie makers did not participate in the Great Western Movement as their eggs, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and sour cream never survived the months-long journey.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

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Check out my latest novel, the hilarious apocalyptic thriller, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms? It’s published by HumorOutcasts and is available in paperback or Kindle on amazon.com

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