Phyllo (or filo) pastry dough is one of the things that should be kept in your freezer at all times. You can make delicious appetizers and desserts with it. I used to make scrambled egg, cheese and bacon breakfast pastry long before I knew how to cook. Now they sell the same thing but by different names.

Phyllo dough looks intimidating because it is so thin and fragile but that's same reason it is so easy to use. It patches perfectly and bakes up even better. It is almost impossible to make a mistake with this dough.

For easy meat puff pastries, use spicy ground beef, lamb, pork or a combination to make hot sandwiches that children will love. Think of Sloppy Joe's in flaky pastry dough. You can also use hot or mild chorizos*, Italian sausage, sweet or hot.

Beef Puff Pastry

INGREDIENTS

1 package frozen Phyllo dough
1/2 cup of melted margarine or butter
1 egg yolk or 1/2 cup of eggbeaters

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Finely dice the chorizo or remove the casing from the sausage and cook. Add salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce to taste to your choice of meat filling (about 1 pound). Add one small finely chopped onion. Cook over medium heat until done. Pour fat from pan, then return 1 tablespoon of fat to pan and add one small can of tomato sauce. Cook until meat is blended and flavored thoroughly. Remove from heat and cover.

Place 1 sheet of thawed Phyllo dough on a damp towel. Brush dough with melted butter then place a second sheet on top of it. This makes a flakier pastry. Then cut the large sheet into 4 even squares. With a tablespoon put 2 spoonfuls of meat mixture onto square, moisten edges of square with egg and fold into a triangle. Press edge with your fingers or a fork. Brush top with egg. Continue until all meat filling is used. Bake until pastry is a light golden brown. Remove from oven. Cool before tasting, filling will be extremely hot.

hints

*Chorizo is a highly spiced Spanish sausage. You should be able to get them from your local supermarket.
*Keep waiting Phyllo dough covered with a damp towel at all times. It dries out very quickly.
*Make baked desserts with canned pie filling spooned onto Phyllo dough.