A little while ago I put the question out there on Instagram – would you like to see recipes for easy lunches parents can make at home? The answer was quick and positive.
It’s easy to skip the lunch meal or replace it with snacks while multitasking because we’re busy with kids, house and life and it feels like making a meal, then sitting down to eat it, would be hard. Impossible, even. But, it’s really important to look after you and who can resist a yummy, home cooked meal? Little ones are offered a good lunch and asked to sit at the table to eat it – same rule for the grown ups is an excellent idea, I think!
I enjoy cooking myself something yummy for lunch, setting out a pretty placemat, napkin and ‘the good china’, switching off my phone so there are no distractions and sitting down to eat. It’s refueling for the body and soul.
Today we’re starting with a personal favourite – chicken and lemon pithivier. If you haven’t had a pithivier before, please don’t be put off by the fancy name – it’s essentially a pie not baked in a pie baking tray and is really easy to make. Best of all, if you’ve made a roast chicken for the family meal the night before it’s a great way to use up the leftovers. Here’s how…
Ingredients
1/4 roast chicken, cooled and shredded
1/4 cup marscapone
the juice of half a lemon
a couple sprigs of fresh thyme
1/4 cup baby spinach leaves
salt and pepper
2 sheets of puff pastry
Method
Preheat the oven to 190C
Combine the chicken, marscapone, lemon juice and thyme leaves in a bowl and season with salt & pepper
Take two plates of different sizes (one needs to be about 2cm smaller in diameter than the other) and use them to cut one circle in each size from the pastry sheets
Place the smaller of the pastry sheets on your baking tray, lined with baking paper.
Place the spinach on top of the smaller of the pastry sheets and top with the chicken mix, leaving a 2cm border around the edge of the pastry
Drape the larger of the pastry sheets over the top and fold the edges of the pastry together and over to enclose the chicken and spinach
Bake for 15mins or until the pastry is a lovely golden brown
Enjoy!
