What I Ate Today

Here’s one I made up. Partly because I couldn’t find any recipes with the ingredients I wanted to use, and then we missed several others when we went shopping.

I had intended this to be a quick dish, using pre-made shortcrust pastry but since they didn’t have any and we had a shortage of eggs I ended up making something up.

Ingredients
Pastry

• 4oz wholemeal flour
• 2oz vegetable fat
• 1oz walnuts, ground
• 1-2 tbsp water

Filling

• 18oz squash
• 3 mushrooms – Portabella would be nice, I used button
• 2 handfulls spinach
• 3-4oz feta
• 1/4 pt buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped

Start on the pastry. Leave the vegetable fat out for a while to warm up. Shift the flour into a bow. Cut the fat into chunks and add to the flour. Rub with your fingertips until you get to something like breadcrumbs. Add the ground walnuts. Make a small well in the centre and slowly start adding the water. Continue mixing with your hands until you get to an elastic consistency. Roll into a ball, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge whilst you roast the squash.

Cut how much squash you need (I used about a quarter), cover in olive oil and roast (170C) until it starts to caramelise (~20-30 mins). Just before the squash is ready, start making the pastry. Roll it out, place it into a suitable tray and blind-bake it for 10mins.

Now start on the filling. Let the squash cool a little first. Fry the onion and garlic until soft. Wash, dry and slice the mushrooms and add to the onions. Break and beat the egg, mix with the buttermilk. Peel and cube the squash. Once the mushrooms are cooked, remove the mixture to a plate. Pour a small amount of water into the pan and wilt the spinach.

Once the pastry is done, crumble in the feta and add the rest of the veg. Finally cover with the egg and buttermilk. Cook in the oven for 18mins.

I’m not totally convinced of the buttermilk, but it ended up tasting pretty nice and the ingredients worked really well together.