All Puffed Up

Girl will begin by demonstrating the ways she has used a packet of basic puff pastry from the supermarket. For someone on a budget, there are an endless variety of puffs, sweet and savoury, that can be made with a sheet of pastry, imagination and a few other cheap ingredients.

PUFF 1: Apple Puffs

Ingredients: A packet of puff pastry and a can of diced apple.

If Girl had really been in full on Health-Nazi mode, she would have peeled, cored and cut up into chunks some apples and stewed it in a saucepan. But Girl was in Schultz mode and so, canned diced apple it was.


Girl thawed out puff pastry (always the hardest part), cut the white sheet into squares, placed a portion of apple in the middle of the pastry square, folded the pastry over and secured edges by pressing it together with a fork. Puffs were baked at about 180c for about 15-20 minutes (Girl checked every so often by peering into the oven) and when the puffs were deemed brown and crisp enough, the oven was turned off.


The end result...beautiful puffed pillows of appley goodness...

PUFF 2: Tuna Puffs

Ingredients: A packet of puff pastry and a can of tuna (sweet thai chilli).

As before, Girl thawed pastry, cut it into squares, placed tuna in the middle of the pastry squares, squeezed edges together and baked them. This time, the bottoms came out a little iffy (because of the liquid from the tuna, Girl suspects...). The choice of sweet thai chilli tuna could have turned out so bad but instead, Girl had savoury, triangular puffs of spicy tuna for dinner. Very filling and cheap!

And yes, this time, Girl screwed up the baking time a little...check it out...