Lazy Cook, Again

If you want something quick and easy to make and delicious, how about making cheese pie. This is my family's favourite. All you need is puff pastry, cheese, onion and either milk or egg to glaze the pastry, oh, and some flour so that it won't stick when you roll out.  And you obviously need a rolling pin to roll the pastry and an oven to bake.  This is a perfect recipe for a lazy cook.

Buy a packet of puff pasty from a shop or supermarket, unless you want to make the pasty from the scratch - but listen, the whole point to be a lazy cook is to involve minimum effort!

1. Turn the oven to heat up. I usually set it at 200 degree.
2. Cut the pasty into half. Sprinkle some flour on a surface of kitchen worktop or table and roll out half of the pasty to a size that would fit whatever the baking tray you have. I normally lay a non-stick baking sheet on the baking tray before you lay a sheet of rolled out pastry on it.  
3. Slice a block of yellow cheddar cheese into smaller slices and and lay them on the pasty to cover the pastry sheet but leaving some space around the edge.
4. Slice 1/2 to 1 medium size onion and sprinkle these on the sheet of cheddar cheese slices.
5. Roll out the other half of the puff pastry to blanket over the cheese and onion slices.
6. Fold the edge/rim of the pastry to seal the whole pie. Use a fork to press the edge firmly to seal the pie properly.
7. Make a few cuts on the top pastry.
8. Brush the pasty with either milk or egg to glaze. Pour a little bit of milk into each cut.
9. Put it in the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until it's golden brown.

I have recently served this to my family with grilled vegetables - red and yellow peppers, courgettes, long stemmed broccolis and red onions.  I like to either brush or mix vegetables with a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and crushed garlic before grill them.

All tasty food (....chips!) and 'brown' food (... pies and chips!!) are not good for your health. Cheese and pastry combination is an example of that however accompanying lots of grilled vegetable would make you feel less guilty to eat.

My daughters have been asking for this recipe for some time. Well, Emily and Maria, here it is and it's your turn now to make the cheese pie as this is so easy and quick.  This means that I don't need to make this anymore ... Now, that's REALLY a lazy cook!

Lazy Cook

When I came home from work, I was so hungry and wanted to make something quick. So I made Spaghetti with tomato and tuna for my husband and me.
I bought this blue plate at local market when we went to Bardolino (Lake Garda) in Italy for family holiday about 6 - 7 years ago. It features langoustine, scallop and prawns around the rim of the plate and every time I make this spaghetti, I use this plate reminiscing of wonderful food we had there.
I only bought 2 plates - I wish I bought more.

This is very easy to make and takes less than 20 minutes, so suitable for a lazy cook like me!

The following receipt for the sauce is for 2 - 3 people.  You need:

200 - 240g spaghetti or penne
1 1/2 tbs flat parsley - chopped
1 small - medium sized red chili, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 small clove of garlic, chopped
1 ts fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
400 - 500g  passata (or 1 tin of chopped tomato)
1 - 2 ts capers
black olives - optional
1 tin of tuna steak, drained and flaked
rock salt and pepper
olive oil

While you are boiling the water for spaghetti, you chopped all these ingredients, fry parsley, chill, garlic and ginger with olive oil in a pan for a few minutes.  (This has such a lovely smell!!!) Then tip in passata into the pan and cook for 3 - 5 minutes. You then add tuna, capers and olives into the pan and cook further 5 minutes and then simmer for another 5 minutes or until the spaghetti is ready. Add pinch of rock salt and pepper to the sauce to season.
Make sure you stop cooking the spaghetti just before the point of al dante and toss with the sauce. Divide between 2 - 3 plates and serve.  Keep some sauce to spoon over the individual servings and drizzle a little bit of olive oil.

I wonder what others are eating now for dinner....???