Making Friday Night Treats An Easy Fix

Hello sandwich lovers!

I have a quick little post for you this week. Unfortunately it is not what I had originally intended, which was a tribute to St. Patrick’s Day. However that said, we Irish tend to celebrate it all year round, so I am sure that it will pop up again soon – maybe even next week.

I had spent the entire week being very good, even semi-angelic in terms of calorie intake, healthy eating and getting exercise as part of my never ending battle to be trimmer. So when it came to Friday I hit that wall, as all dieters do, thinking ‘wouldn’t it be amazing to have a pizza’. Now I guess we’ve all been here as choosing a pizza these days is akin to choosing a car – it’s like a lifestyle choice; skinny or regular, thin or large crust, low fat or full fat cheese, how many toppings and of course – bought, delivered or made…what would the neighbours think and so forth.

I was also going through the motions of these life-changing pizza questions on Friday when I had a welcome and simplifying thought – why not just buy some bread and use what you have in the fridge? Now I grant you that not everybody has pizza or flatbread toppings in their fridge (and neither do I usually), however this was a rare occasion when I happened to have supplies. So, feeling relieved and happy, off I trotted on my way home into Marks & Spencer and picked up a pretty nice looking flat Focaccia for £2.99. Boom! dinner for two days sorted for a bargain price.

Back at the ranch, I pulled out of the fridge baby spinach, a Mozzarella ball, Parma ham and to my delight, some leftover sun-dried tomato pesto. This was a real find as I had already mentally dedicated myself to opening up a can of chopped tomatoes and reducing it down with garlic and onion for the sauce so lucky me…and Hey Pesto! in five minutes flat I had a delicious homemade flatbread ‘pizza’ ready for the oven. Healthier and a lot cheaper than a Deliveroo and plenty of time for thinking other (semi) great thoughts, rather than which of the 100 types of available pizza to get.

To prepare your flatbread, all you have to do is spread the pesto (or sauce) on the bread and then interlock the spinach, ham and cheese alternately on top, season with cracked black pepper and a sprinkling of olive oil. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and bake on the rack for 15 minutes. Remove, slice and enjoy! It’s definitely enough for two people so if you can’t finish the other half (as I couldn’t), then simply wrap and freeze for another time. Just remember to reheat in the oven again (not in the microwave).

There we have it – a delicious homemade pizza alternative. By the way, it’s also very tasty with ham and cheddar cheese or of course you can mix it up with any vegetarian alternatives. Why not try some charred artichokes and courgette on top for example?

As it was the weekend, a chilled Coors Light went very well with this little slice of the good life! If you are entertaining, this is also a handy recipe to have ready in advance to simply put in the oven for your guests.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for more breadsheets fun!

Have a great week everybody and see you soon.

Be safe and well, Peter