I know, I know, flour pie sounds distinctly uninspiring but stay with me.

A few months back I saw this recipe on Instagram, and it caught my eye. It just looked so wholesome and fresh! I made it, and it was. A lovely way to use up greens, in a very non boring way. I love a recipe where you essentially chuck it all in, and bake it. I’d gathered a huge amount of juicy looking dandelion greens from the garden, so they got chopped up along with a bag of salad greens that needed a dignified end. Mix them all with a cornmeal and spelt flour batter, chuck some cheese in if you have some, bake it, and there it is!

Having enjoyed the original so much, I had a hankering for that slightly grainy cornmeal batter again. My thought process went thus: grainy, hmm…ooh, pears have that texture too. Might add some. Do I want sweet? No. Savoury. Definitely savoury. Pears. Cheese. WALNUTS.

And so a pear, pecorino cheese and walnut flour pie was born. I halved the recipe as I knew that only I would be eating it.

1/2 tsp sea salt
180 ml milk
60 ml water
8 Tbs good quality olive oil
150 g cornmeal
100 g spelt flour or wholemeal flour
15g nutritional yeast flakes (it boosts the cheese nicely)
120g pecorino cheese chopped into small pieces or grated, it’s up to you
1 tsp pul biber (Aleppo pepper)
115g walnut halves, chopped
1 large ripe pear, skinned and chopped

Pour the milk, water and olive oil into the bowl. Add the cornmeal, spelt flour, pul biber and nutritional yeast. Mix well until all the dry ingredients become moist and everything is evenly distributed. Add in the cheese, pear and chopped walnuts.

Generously grease a 20-24 cm round baking dish or tin with olive oil and spread the mixture evenly over the bottom. (I used an oven proof frying pan)
It should be a fairly thin layer.
Sprinkle the top with walnut pieces if desired, and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until the mixture is set. Watch the top, as if you added nuts they may catch.

This became lunch for a few days, and I was rather happy about that!