Vegetarian cooking Recipe: Spinach, haloumi, and mint pies.

Students in the senior cooking elective tried different flavour combinations this week with three different cheeses, mint, and spinach. They grated a cheese from Cyprus called haloumi. They did a fantastic job filling the pastry cases. We used fresh mint from the garden.

Ingredients:

Cooking spray, to grease

125 g frozen chopped leaf spinach, thawed.

2 eggs

250 g fresh ricotta

100 g haloumi coarsely grated.

25 g parmesan finely grated.

¼ cup finely chopped mint leaves

1 teaspoon dried mint

1 ½ sheets frozen ready-rolled puff pastry, partially thawed.

Serve suggestions with sweet potato dip, aioli, or tomato chutney.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 24-hole mini muffin tray with oil. Put spinach in a sieve over a large bowl and set aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze excess liquid from the spinach.
Whisk one egg in a large bowl until lightly beaten. Stir in ricotta, haloumi, parmesan, fresh and dried mint, and the drained spinach. Season with pepper.

Cut puff pastry sheet into 16 squares and the half sheet into 8 squares. Push a square into each hole to line base and sides, with pastry corners sticking up.

Recipe: Cheesy filo triangles

Upper Junior students learned how to make triangles using filo pastry. They had to brush layers of filo with butter, put them together and then add the filling. It was a challenge to form triangles, but students got better at it when they repeated the process. If you would like help, please visit the Kidspot recipe website to view the video.

Ingredients:

200 g fresh ricotta

¾ cup peas (frozen is fine)

2 tablespoons chopped mint.

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

1 egg

1 packet filo pastry

100 g melted butter (or 80 ml oil)

Method

Add ricotta, peas, mint, parmesan, egg and seasoning into a bowl.
On a clean board, unroll filo sheet. Cut into four even strips. Cover the rest of the filo with a damp cloth so it does not dry out. Brush oil onto one strip at a time and stack until 3 strips.
Add cheese filling to end nearest you and then roll corner to corner flipping over each time. Brush the end of the strip with oil and seal. Repeat the process with the remaining filling. Preheat oven to 200C or 180C fan forced. Place triangles on a greased or lined baking tray and brush tops. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and flaky.

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