austerity.

It’s been a pretty austere winter around here, from every perspective but the foodie one.

We’ve been besieged by  just about every flu bug and head cold and general bad feeling that has come our way, and we’ve not left our nest nearly enough.

The result, a lack of sleep and fresh air and an excess of time spent contemplating these four walls, has done nothing to propel me forward into my usual post-new-year’s effort to change my life via diet and exercise.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Instead of even considering a routine any more punishing than my current one (the sleepless, scratchy-throated haze that all of you who have had sick small children will recognize), I have been luxuriating in my cookbooks and old issues of Gourmet, baking my (sweat)pants off, and throwing myself with abandon on any dish that involves starch and cheese and the oven.

Like this one, which has become the new lunch-time staple at our house. It’s from Nigella Lawson’s new book, Kitchen: Recipes From the Heart of the Home, and it is so simple and quick and basic that you can do almost anything with it. The recipe that follows is my slightly-tweaked version.

Goat Cheese Pizza (adapted from Nigella Lawson)

100g spelt flour

1c milk

1 egg

75g grated cheddar

50g crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Liberally grease an 8″ round cake tin or pie plate.

Whisk together flour, milk and egg until smooth. Stir in two-thirds of the grated cheddar, and turn batter out into prepared pan. Bake 30-35 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining cheddar and goat cheese.

Return to oven for a further 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes or so before cutting into wedges.

This has never served more than the four of us, keeping in mind that two of us eat very little.