As astute readers will have noticed, the previous post indicates I still have half a roll of phyllo dough leftover for the Great Spanakopita Experiment. As is my wont, I turned to Baker's Illustrated again. Seriously, this is the best investment I've made. (By which I mean, the best Christmas present my sister got me that I didn't even ask for or know about.) Only after I bought ingredients for half a recipe did I realize that I completely missed the step where they mention they only use half of the phyllo dough anyways. I amended this by using two sheets nearly every time they wanted two. Also, they wanted all sorts of finicky things like fresh dill and fresh parsley, and I am neither made of money nor like parsley, so I omitted them, and made up for it with...a couple of dashes of dried dill. I'm pretty terrible. Finally, they wanted scallions. I was at the farmer's market when I realized that I have no idea what I scallion is. That is, I knew they were either green onions or shallots. Another recipe I was looking at for the GSE had green onions, but I couldn't recall ever having green onions in spanakopita. So I bought shallots, since I've never had shallots before, and I figured they were all onion-like things anyways, so it wouldn't make any difference. When I was walking home, I decided that scallions were almost certainly the same thing as green onions. (This is fascinating, I know. I could go on about all my thought processes concerning alliums. And I will!) Wikipedia indeed confirms that scallions are green onions. HOWEVER. A few sentences down, the good people of wikipedia mention that:

"Scallion" is sometimes used for Allium ascalonicum, better known as the shallot. The words scallion and shallot are related and can be traced back to the Greek askolonion as described by the Greek writer Theophrastus

Hence, I am vindicated. Assuming there's not some insane scallion-obsessed person trying to prove it is the same thing as a shallot. I used one shallot (whereas the recipe requested 3 scallions, and see, now even I'm getting confused typing all these out) since it was much stronger than I expected.
All these troubles aside, the GSE was a huge success and was incredibly delicious. I also got to use my new microplane grater for the first time, courtesy of Cook's Illustrated, as I decided I wanted some sort of magazine subscription, and it happened to come with something I was planning on buying eventually anyway.

Our freezer is similar to Mary Poppin's bag; it holds all sort of things, more than would seem to logically be able to fit in it. I had a roll of phyllo dough leftover from CONNECTICUT (I have a distinct memory of throwing it in my car straight from the freezer in my old apartment and driving straight to this apartment, about a 2 hour drive on the best of days). My other roommate had a package of frozen spinach, so it was logical to make spanakopita. I was vaguely worried about this, as I've had spanakopita I've liked and disliked before, and I'm not a huge fan of either spinach or feta. So I decided to half the recipe, and cut the phyllo into two, making a small thing of baklava. Because I was pretty sure I wouldn't screw baklava up. Now, I was having a really awful day, and was devastated when I realized I rushed and cut the phyllo dough into half the wrong way. But I calmed down, and cut it in half again to lay the pieces side by side. Which worked out just fine, as butter and sugar and dough and walnuts tends to do. Had I been thinking properly, I probably would have chopped up the walnuts finer (they were in 'baking bits' from Trader Joe's) but it still worked out fine. I halved this recipe and made it in an 9x9 baking pan, with room leftover on the sides. Also, the butter is just used for brushing the dough, and 4 tablespoons in a halved recipe was more than enough to douse everything.