Almost finished...

At least two or three times a week we have meals that don’t involve any fish or meat, like more and more people do these days. This gives you loads of opportunities to try out different ideas. This is a simple pastry flan started by Brian and finished by me. He likes making pastry in the Kenwood so who am I to stop him? Brian’s current favourite pastry for this is made from 50/50 wholemeal and plain flour, unsalted butter and a little yoghurt/sourcream or whatever we have in that department. It’s the same pastry as the one for the apricot bakewell slice only in a larger quantity.

I have recently discovered that you can roll pastry out between sheets of clingfilm and it is really easy compared to the mess I used to get into. I was the original “I can’t make pastry” person, but I’m more confident these days and it all seems to come out pretty well, a far cry from the board-like stuff that I remember making.

We didn’t blind bake it, just chilled it once it had been rolled out. Then I filled the case with a mixture of garden veggies: gently sweated chard, green beans, and the last of the spring onions, added some cherry tomatoes and chestnut mushrooms, whipped up a mixture of free range eggs with some home made strained yoghurt and added some cubes of Rocquefort blue cheese.

On go the eggs

Pie for tea

Are you a solo cook? Or do you like cooking together with someone else? And if you do cook with someone else, how do you organize it?