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.
 

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LAST MINUTE HOMEMADE MINCE PIES

If you look for mince pie recipes online 90% off them just list mincemeat from jars as the main ingredient, but it's so easy to make your own mixture, and you only need ingredients that you probably already have at home. This recipe also doesn't need to sit for any time before being used to make mince pies so it's perfect if you feel you've run out of time!

I just grabbed whatever fruit was in the bowl, and you can vary the types and quantities of all the fresh and dry fruit as long as they add up to the right amount.

For 36 mince pies

600g dried fruit - I used about 200g sultanas, 200g raisins, 20g cranberries, 80g chopped apricots, 30g golden sultanas and 70g chopped dates

4 or 5 citrus fruit, zested and juiced - I used 2 large oranges and 3 clementines

4 apples or pears - I used 3 apples and 2 juicy pears, which made up for the small amount of juice from the clementines

60g butter

8 tbsp brandy

Grated nutmeg

Put all the ingredients, except the brandy and nutmeg, into a small heavy bottom saucepan, simmer and cover. Leave to gently simmer for 20minutes, stirring occasionally. After 20 minutes add 6 tbsp brandy, stir, cover and return to the heat for about 5 minutes. Once all the brandy is absorbed, turn the heat off and add the rest of the brandy and a good grating of nutmeg.

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