The pie that made it safely till Saturday

So, what to make that can serve you more than 1 portion without having to prepare anything again.... a pie of course!..  Ricotta Pie is one of my favorite pies but the one I made this week has a little twist to the original recipe.  Firstly the pastry is made with wholemeal flour and secondly I added on "gbejniet" to the ricotta.

Here is what I did:

Place 250g Margarine into your electric mixer and add 1 tsp of salt and 400g wholemeal flour. Sift in 200g plain flour and set the motor running.  Once the margarine is totally incorporated into the flour and you have a nice sandy mixture, keep the motor on and add enough water at room temperature to form a soft dough.  If you want to make this pastry extra cheesy, grate in some cheddar into the flour mixture before adding the water.

Now take out the dough and place it on a floured surface.  

Roll out two thirds of the pastry and line the bottom of your baking dish.

Place 1.5kg ricotta into your electric mixer, add 2 eggs, some chopped fresh parsley and about 1 tablespoon of grated cheese.  Mix these ingredients slowly making sure that the eggs are well mixed in.

Spread the ricotta filling in the baking dish covered with  the dough and set aside. Now slice about 4 to 5 fresh gbejniet and place them over the ricotta filling.

Roll out the remaining dough and cover the pie completely.  Brush the top of the pie with some water and lastly sprinkle some sesame seeds.  

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C (electric fan oven) for about 25 - 30 minutes until the pastry has risen and turned golden.

Ricotta pie can be served straight out of the oven with some side salad or veggies or packed for picnics or as a lunch pack!

Dreaming of Ice-cream

It's funny how I've just come back from a trip to Italy, a food trip to Italy really, and all I can think of ice-cream.  The "devil" I was on holiday with is as bad a fanatic as myself, so it was really hard not to fall in this pitfall!

Even though the temperatures we had were 0C,1C,2C and possibly even 3C we were still happily slicking our ice-cream whilst holding onto our woolen hats, scarfs and gloves!... and even though we were in the northern part of Italy, we ended up discussing and buying "crema di pistacchi".  And no, we weren't the only mad ones in the land. People in Italy buy and eat ice-creams on a regular basis in winter too, and even though at one point we ended up in a some-what empty town and came across possibly 5 people in total roaming the streets, the 2 gelateria in the town were open and also well stocked!

So coming back to Malta thinking that the weather now is even hotter than I left it a couple days ago, I sat on the plane and planned my recipe hunt to then get down to making some ice-cream possibly over the weekend. But of course, my plans went out of the window when I landed in cold wind and rain and instead of taking out my ice-cream machine ( which by the way, has a permanent place in the freezer and ready for any emergencies) I got some wood out of the garage and put on the fireplace once again!

But hey, that's Maltese weather for you... hot in February and cold in March.

So back to warming meals... thinking of stews and soups this week.. will keep you posted with anything I come up with.

Watch out for my Easter Desserts this week. They will be published in the Best Buy Supplement, out this Wednesday 10th with The Times... there is also a cheat version of the Classic Italian Tiramisu without the egg mixture.. so worth a try for those of you who won't go anywhere close to uncooked eggs.

ice-cream recipes on this blog