The Daily Special (Pumpkin Feta Strudel)

I've been wanting to make my own strudel dough (primarily because I am too lazy to go to the store and buy phyllo), I had a little bit of CSA pumpkin left in my freezer, and it's that time of year when I try to clear such odds and ends out of said icebox,  so...

Stretching the dough.  Not quite thin enough yet in this photo, but I was pushing my luck messing with the camera.  This thinner than paper dough dries out fast, especially in the land of single digit humidity.  Put the camera away!  Keep stretching!

You can use pre-made frozen phyllo dough to wrap your strudel, if you like.  This would make you a normal person, unlike the kitchen freak that I am*.  In either case, lay out your dough, brush with melted butter (clarified, if you are so inspired), spread on some of the pumpkin you cooked and froze this fall (first drain it and cook it again to ensure it's really dry**, then let it cool), sprinkle with crumbled feta, perhaps some pepper, oregano, and pine nuts if that sounds good to you, roll it up like a super-sized Austrian burrito (folding in the sides of the dough as well), brushing with more butter as you go, give the final product a final brush, and bake at 400 in the upper portion of your oven for 30 minutes or so.  I used a scant two cups of filling for a 12 inch roll.  You need less than you think.  Or I needed less than I thought. The key in this process is speed. Don't worry how the roll looks, don't worry about any holes in the dough, just work fast enough to finish the whole process before the leaves of dough dry out.  The crispy crunch is to be enjoyed after it's baked, not before!

Oh, aren't you clever?  Make up your own filling, just be sure it's not too soupy.  I think an apricot one will appear in my household very, very soon.  I take that back. I am going to make a miniature apricot one from the left over dough scraps as soon as I hit the "publish" button on this post.  Apricots from this source .

I have a little extra feta on the side.  The strudel needed a bit more.  It was an experiment***, okay?

* If you are a kitchen freak, then make your own strudel dough. It's magic with gluten, and super fun and easy.  I followed a recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  More or less.

** A little insurance against a too wet filling.  Use the traditional "brusel."  Brown a few tablespoons of bread crumbs in a pat of butter, let cool, and sprinkle half of them on the dough where your filling will go, then the other half on top of your filling.

***An experiment.  Meaning I'd do it a little differently next time.  I'd do it the way I wrote it in this post!  So yes, I am, basically, giving you an untested recipe.  In reality, I mixed the pumpkin, seasonings and (not enough) feta together and then spread it on the dough.  And I only thought of the pine nuts after the fact.