I have always liked eating bread and cheese; feta, cheddar, parmesan – or, any of the slightly pungent cheeses; on fresh, crusty bread it is the heavenly taste for me.

I remember, being a little girl, a toddler like child, I would snick into our kitchen at the first opportunity, crawl to the fridge, and open it with difficulty. My goal was to pinch and chew some piece of cheese. I was so determined to the activity that sometimes my mom would find me half in into the freeze, my fat legs dangling out of it, trying to reach the cheese plate while keeping balance; or, perhaps, from joy to be so near to my point of interest.

My mom would laugh, at first; and say, ‘just ask; it’s not difficult my girl, is it? And you’ll have a small slice…’ Soon however she realized that she could use my obvious keenness for cheese to tempt me, and I’d say, with much success. ‘Veggies first…’ she would order in a soft voice, pointing at my plate where the greens and the carrots, displayed in different patterns, were pushed aside and around the dish with my fork, avoiding my mouth.

The point is that the habit and pleasure of eating bread and cheese, instead of bread and butter pure, or with other ingredients on top of it, has stayed with me for always. In particular, my most enjoyable culinary delicacy is when the bread is white, which, with cheese, I could eat for days and days, without any other foodstuff in my nutritional arrangements; becoming an obsession, an addiction, like the chocolate-dependency is for some? Perhaps; the habit is totally unhealthy because of the diet dullness, the unbalanced consumption of carbohydrates  (refined wheat flour, meaning ‘manipulated product’!), the lack of vitamins and minerals and the saturated fat in the cheese, as my sister preaches; and, the whole thing is fattening, unless its consumption is moderated and enriched with healthier food, -like greens and red veggies.

I must admit that my habit has nothing to do with being lazy in the kitchen. I cook almost daily, sometimes copying elaborated recipes; there are at least twenty cookery books in my selves written by some of the best chefs internationally, with advice and pictures. So I cook, and often the result is pleasing, taste-wise.

But, following such recipes, it is not what one would think a single person needs, quantity-wise. It could easily feed eight people; and so, it is often that our neighbor’s blond cat, Bubble, has a feast. Now, where have I heard cats don’t like routines? Each time I step out of my front door, Bubble is waiting on the pavement and follows me around, industriously rubbing his fur to my legs as cats do when they are starving; which, starving, he is not.  ‘Just likes his treat!’ my neighbor mocks.

The story is that trying to moderate my absolute habit of eating unhealthy, I came out with a recipe, a kind of a cheese pie, delicious and healthier than white bread and cheese; for this, I tampered with Jamie’s ‘fast and easy dough for bread’ recipe, and the use of a mixture of low-fat cheese’s that satisfies both my palate and my belly.

Here it is and I hope you’d like it:

One easy and healthy, cheese pie for an all-hours-snack

In a bowl, I put:

• Four soup-spoons-full of flour (best is the whole grain one);
• Three soup-spoons-full of oats (I use a bio kind);
• Two to three soup-spoons-full of olive oil;
• One and one half soup-spoons-full of white, low fat yogurt, the Greek type;
• A pinch of salt (just the tip of a tea-spoon);

I mix all together until I have a sticky bulk of dough. I wrap the dough with non-stick cooking paper (e.g. Sanitas is ideal for the oven), and leave it for 10 to 15 minutes aside to relax.

In the meantime, I cut some mozzarella cheese and two or three pieces of low-fat cheeses in tiny bits, and mix them together with a few soup-spoons-full of grounded parmesan cheese – (the quantity depends on how cheesy you want the pie to be! – The cheese mix would usually be less than a full breakfast bowl).

In the last but one final step, I divide the dough into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other; then, with the rolling pin I open up each bit into a sheet, the thinnest possible. I lay the non-stick paper onto a baking pan; I place the slightly larger pastry sheet on the paper, then the cheeses mix and cover with the second sheet. I seal the pie by pressing the edges of the two pastry sheets together; I engrave the top of the pie into bite-full pieces with a knife, spread some olive oil, and sprinkle with some drops of water. Ready for the oven: I cook it at 180 degrees on air for ten minutes (or twelve, – need to watch it), until it looks light brown and crispy.

The final step is to eat it: Sprinkled with some honey and fruit, it makes breakfast; or, ideally, escorted by a green salad a light lunch for two persons.

Bonne appetite!

 

Ps. Please note that the words in bold indicate some of the ‘must’ for this pie.