Easy peasy Ricotta cheese pie for Spring

It's sunny, it's warm, it's great to be outside and the longer evenings mean it's great to have something ready to eat when you go home. I had this savoury ricotta cheese pie at a friend's house, but when I asked her for the recipe she shrugged her shoulders and said she just did it by guesswork. She told me the ingredients and so I tried to make it and every time it comes out different but always tastes delicious.

Savoury Ricotta Cheese Pie

500g ricotta cheese
4 eggs
4 heaped tbsps. fine bread crumbs
4 heaped tbsps. grated Parmesan cheese
sliced olives - optional
anchovy fillets - optional

Beat the eggs and ricotta together.
Stir in the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.
Season to taste with salt and pepper then add the olives if using.
Spread the mixture over a well buttered or lined pie dish.
Sprinkle over more breadcrumbs and dot with butter.
Arrange the anchovy fillets in a star pattern if using.
Bake in the oven at 180 for about 30 minutes until golden and set.
Leave to cool and cut into 6 - 8 slices.

This pie keeps well in the fridge for two days.
Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Hope you enjoy this recipe and it brings sunshine into your life.

Just 4 basic ingredients and then add whatever you fancy

A star pattern of anchovies looks nice

Ready for a picnic or light supper

Thinking about Shakespeare

Shakespeare's plays and poems can be read and enjoyed time and time again, not for nothing is he still so popular after five hundred years, all over the world, For surely he expresses such a profound knowledge of human nature that we can all relate to his tales and stories. They are like fairy tales for adults, we know the story, we know what's coming and we know if it's going to end happily or not, but we are still hooked right from the start at the beauty of Shakespeare's words, the way he uses language to express the feelings that are in the human heart.
Like the magic of the story books Shakespeare can transport you to the scene of adventure, passion, romance, comedy or tragedy.

Yesterday I went to see the latest film version of 'Macbeth', starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cottilard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
What schoolchild hasn't had a giggle changing the chant of the three witches
'Double, double toil and trouble' into 'double, double toilet trouble',  or maybe that was just me!
So I sat back and in spite of the gloomy, frightening scenes I enjoyed listening to the familiar words and feeling the actors pleasure in reciting the words of someone they must consider the greatest writer of plays of all time. I thought of all the life lessons there are, the genius of Shakespeare seeing the depths of the human soul
Right from the start we realize how grief can make people mad, that the human mind can only take so much suffering, how the love of power can corrupt.
How much easier if Macbeth and his lady had  been united by their love for each  other and gone off roaming in the gloaming.

'What's done is done,'
'There's daggers in men's smiles'.

It was filmed on the beautiful Isle of Skye and reminded me of a song my mum sang at bed time

Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing
Onward the sailor's cry.
Carry the lad that was born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye.

Pasticcio di Polenta, Northern Italian comfort food

This weekend I went to Florence, they don't have much polenta there. Such is the regional nature of Italian cuisine that they don't have the same things on the menu in Florentine restaurants as they would say in Veneto. No risottos or Baccala , but lots of bean soups and Florentine steaks.
Nowadays polenta is often used as an accompaniment to meat or fish stews but once it was all there was for many people to eat, it saved a lot of Northern Italians from starvation. It is made from maize flour brought over from America. Many people only ate polenta, at every meal, every day. Sometimes to give it a bit of flavour they would rub it with a herring or an anchovy, but sparingly and then wrap the fish up to use another time. It was very common to get a disease from eating only polenta but that was still preferable to the alternative.
Whenever I make something I think of its sobering history, and the people that owed there lives to this everyday dish.
In this recipe I use polenta the same way that you would lasagne, to make a pasticcio.

Pasticcio di Polenta

4 carrots, grated
1 onion, finely chopped
1 - 2 tins of tomatoes
1 glass of red or white wine,
250ml vegetable stock
300g good quality minced beef
basil, salt and pepper
grated parmesan cheese
150ml cream
400g polenta, thinly sliced.

Gently cook the chopped onion and grated carrot in a small amount of olive oil until soft.
Add the tinned tomatoes and simmer gently.
In a non stick pan gently cook the minced beef to get rid of excess fat, then drain and add to the carrot, onion and tomato mixture.
Add the wine and let it evaporate.
Mix well and add the basil and season to taste.
Pour in the stock and cook gently for about an hour.

Line an oven proof dish with the slices of polenta, then cover with the meat sauce, add another layer of polenta and another of meat sauce.
Cover with the cream and sprinkle over the grated cheese.

Bake in the oven at 180 for about half an hour until golden on top and heated through.

Serve with a green salad.

Buon appetito

Everything ready

Two pans simmering gently

All together now

Get ready to assemble the dish

Ready for the oven

Smells delicious!!

Goes well with a glass of wine