Pasqualina cake

Don’t be fooled by the name, this is a savoury dish! A simple tart you can easily bring to a picnic with a crispy puff pastry case and a filling of ricotta and spinach – the most famous Italian couple. It is traditionally served at Easter but it’s so good and easy to make, you’ll end up eating it all year round.

I find cooking very hard at the moment. I am so lost in an infinite to do list, exhausted by work and life, that I am lacking time and energy to cook. I simply can’t be bothered.

As you might know or as you might have guessed, I do love cooking. This food blog is not happening by chance hehe!  However, when I am particularly stressed or sad, cooking is the first thing that drops from my to do list.

What about you?

In these crazy periods, I find impossible to dedicate myself to cooking. To be completely honest, it’s not just about the lack of time or excessive tiredness, it’s also about losing interest in any activities that spark any sort of strong feeling.

This sounds odd, but let me explain and keep in mind that’s just my personal experience and opinion – these are NOT facts.

When time is busy, body and mind go in survival mode, a preservation technique ancient as the earth. I think my mind, unconsciously, looks into ways to preserve energy and one of these is crossing out ‘the feeling of feelings’.

In these crazy periods, apathy says hello. As it takes over my mind and body, the pleasure of cooking is one of the first things to go. That’s because cooking involves loving and loving involves expressing yourself – too tiring at these times.

As a consequence, in these busy periods, not only I lack sleep, but I also eat random things at random times.

By now I am quite familiar with this sensation, and I have a few recipes in my back pocket that rescue me when I don’t feel like cooking. Unsurprisingly, pasta+pesto is the most recurring meal of my rescue food list. Pasta+pesto is nurturing and requires no effort.

The pasqualina cake is also part of this special list. It is not as easy as a pasta dish, but it is something my mum made so often that is now part of my DNA and I can make it quickly with closed eyes.

I am lovingly sharing it with you today hoping my simple version of a pasqualina cake will also help you to go through hard times. You can make it the day before and even eat it cold if no energies are left.

It’s also a very happy dish: as you cut the first slice, you’ll see yolks bright like the sun sitting on a pillow of deep green spinaches.

It’s impossible not to smile eating a pasqualina cake, it’s the best picnic companion or a friendly pick-me-up for busy days.