3 RECIPES WITH PASTRY

Cooking with pastry is a wonderful thing. It's so rewarding making your own and creating a dish with it, but sometimes time isn't on your side and you need a quick alternative. And often for this I turn to pre-made pastry to create something that looks impressive and tastes delicious, but can actually be thrown together in less than half an hour. I use pastry a lot, especially when cooking for friend's parties, so thought I'd share a few of my go to recipes here for you, starting off with a savoury favourite.

SPINACH, SQUASH & SESAME ROLLS

1/2 squash, diced into cm cubes
Olive oil
1 pack spinach
1 tub ricotta
1 pack Jus Rol puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
Handful sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 200C. Toss the squash in a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper and cook in the oven until soft - as I chop the squash so small this only takes around 15-20 minutes to cook.

Put the spinach in a steamer, and steam over boiling water for a couple of minutes. Once done, put the spinach and ricotta in a bowl and mix together, adding the squash and mashing it in, until you're left with a thick spinach/ricotta/squash paste. Taste and season if necessary. Unroll the puff pastry and make a thick line of the paste lengthways along the pastry. Brush one edge of the pastry with beaten egg and roll the pastry up to create a tube around the paste. Seal the edge by pressing down with a fork, brush the pastry all over with beaten egg and sprinkle the sesame seeds on top. Cook at 200C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.
 

Next up are a couple of puddings - again, super easy to make and a real showstopper to serve.

SUMMER BERRY & HONEY TART

1 pack of Jus Rol puff pastry
1 tub double cream
3 tbsp. honey
Seasonal berries - I made this in July and used 1 punnet of strawberries and 1 punnet of raspberries
Mint leaves

Preheat oven to 200C. Roll the puff pastry out, place on a baking tray and prick all over with a fork. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Whip the double cream and 2 tbsp. of the honey together until it has thickened. Once the pastry is cooled, spread the cream over the rectangle of pastry. Cover the cream with berries, then drizzle over the last tbsp. of honey and a few torn mint leaves. Perfect to serve at a summer BBQ! (I know that's while off yet, but we can dream of summer can't we?!)

LEMON AND THYME TART

1 pack of Jus Rol shortcrust pastry
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
3 lemons
100g caster sugar
10 stalks fresh thyme
200g double cream
100g ground almonds

1 x 8" tart case

Preheat the oven to 200C. Roll out your pastry into a circle, around 4mm thick and about 1 inch larger than your 8 inch tart case. Press the pastry into the tart case, and put a layer of greaseproof paper on top. Fill with rice or dried beans and cook for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, in a saucepan beat together the egg, egg yolk, zest from 1 lemon and the juice from all of them. Pour the caster sugar over the thyme stalks and bash them with a wooden spoon. Remove the thyme, whisk the caster sugar into the egg mix in your saucepan. Gently heat this mixture, stirring until it has doubled its thickness. Add the double cream, and continue to stir over the heat for around 3 more minutes.

Once the pastry case has cooled sprinkle the ground almonds in a fine layer over the base. Pour the lemon mixture over the almonds, then refrigerate the tart for 4+ hours before serving. I serve mine with whipped crème fraiche, sprinkled with lemon zest. The boy had his swimming in cream - each to their own!! 

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I noticed that The Guardian had a pastry feature at the weekend as well, so for more ideas and inspiration have a look here.