Camping food - Cheese & Marmite Pasties

We had another camping trip this weekend. A quick one in that we didn't head off till Saturday morning, and didn't go far - just to where we keep a sailing dinghy on Southampton Water. The view is not beautiful (Fawley oil refinery, although it does have a certain industrial beauty) but it's situated in a lovely country park, and there is a camping field attached to the club. Nothing grand, but a flat sheltered field - and frankly that's all you need.

Anyway, now we have Daisy the campervan, which is fully stocked and ready to go at a moment's notice from a 'kit' point of view, my main concern (well, isn't it always) is food. Clothes too, but I've long since learned that for a weekend trip, there's no point packing much in the way of 'changes of clothes'. I just try to make sure there's a jumper and some waterproofs, for any inclement weather that might be rude enough to strike, and appropriate easy access footwear (crocs or wellies). If you were looking for it, I can't really offer much more advice than that on the packing front as far as clothes are concerned. I also don't have a 'master camping list' to share with you - of a type which I once saw passed from one friend to another, kept as a reference document for future trips. As long as I know there's gin on board, I can live with out a dustpan and brush...

Not just gin, but treats. Some form of cake (this weekend, there was brownie). Bacon, for sandwiches on Sunday morning. Proper coffee (Daisy has her own stovetop coffee maker - yes, I know, proper coffee probably smacks more of glamping than camping, but I don't care - you can't beat an alfresco bacon buttie with a mug of proper coffee of a morning). This weekend, we also had cheese & marmite pasties.

Pasties are a great thing. What's more, I don't know a man who doesn't find his food infinitely more attractive if it's wrapped in pastry. I might try wrapping myself in pastry one of these days and see what reaction that provokes - or may be not.

Despite dashing the collective male hopes in the RJ household when the response to the question "Have they got meat in them?" garnered the response "No.  Well, they do have Marmite", the verdict was that they were pretty good.

They started out as  Good Food recipe, but frankly, I am always suspicious of pasty filling quantity these days, having over produced on several occasions, despite having followed filling to pastry ratios in a number of recipes to the letter. So I reduced the filling ingredients to something I thought more likely, and added in a good handful of chopped parsley.

Cheese & Marmite Pasties

Made 7 decent sized pasties and a small one.


500g shortcrust pastry
350g peeled, grated potato
100g grated cheddar
60g fresh breadcrumbs
4 spring onions, finely chopped
1 large handful of flat leaf pastry, finely chopped
1 large & 1 medium egg
salt & pepper
1 good tablepoon of MarmiteLine a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 160C/140 fan, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Mix together the grated potato, cheese, breadcrumbs, spring onions and chopped parsley with the large egg and a good grind of salt and pepper.

Roll out the pastry on a floury worktop and cut out 16-17cm circles of pastry (our cereal bowls are the right size) - as many as you can: hopefully you'll get about 7.

Melt the Marmite in a saucepan with a splash of water, and brush onto the pastry rounds, leaving a border all the way round of about 1-2 cm. Divide the filling between the pastry circles, placing in the middle of the rounds. Beat the remaining egg, brush lightly around the border of each circle, then draw up the sides and squeeze together to make your pasties. Brush with the remaining beaten egg*, then place on a lined baking sheet and bake for between 50-60 minutes (mine took 55) till golden brown.

In an effort to come over all vintage picnic chic, I packed my pasties in my favourite cake tin, lined with a tea towel. Wrapped in foil, or in a plastic bag would do just fine.

I'm linking up to a new blog challenge - Four Seasons Food, which looks like fun!


Four Seasons Food hosted by Delicieux and Chezfoti




*The original recipe states that these can be frozen once the pasties are formed but before you brush them with the beaten egg, and then baked from frozen till the centres are piping hot. I didn't but it's a top tip, guaranteed to elevate you in the pasty queen stakes...

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Pastry - and pasties

OK, so I don't want you to think I'm getting too big for my boots here, but allow me to whisper something

*I may have cracked pastry*

There. I won't say it too loudly, but 3 times in as many weeks, I have made pastry and it's worked out OK.

Admittedly not 'short as short' shortcrust pastry, but pastry nonetheless.

First, I made Hugh F-W's swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday, which involves his rough puff pastry. A bit of rolling and turning is required, but really, this is very little effort pastry and tastes brilliant.

Then, a rather unusual rapeseed oil and spelt flour affair as part of a leek tart that appears in Rose Elliot's 30 Minute Vegetarian. My mother in law was down for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. She is a vegetarian and this book is a great resource - the meals are brilliantly easy, very tasty and dead quick. Not necessarily a good thing, I'll grant you, if you were hoping to escape to the kitchen for a while - although don't ask ME why you'd want to do that, oh no... But I digress. I'd planned this for Sunday lunch, but she had to leave early, so we spent the day in the garden and I made this for tea. And in case you were wondering, because she'd gone home, I added some ham. 

The pastry literally involved mixing the flour and oil together with a little water, then rolling it out between clingfilm 

 

before lining the tin and baking blind. 

OK, so may be a little patching was required

The Husband thought it was a bit odd - it does have quite a strong flavour - a combination of the rapeseed oil and the spelt flour - and the texture of the pastry, once baked was a little crumbly, but I liked it. Actually, the tart as a whole was pretty good. Pink didn't like it that much, but Blue who I was expecting to wail and moan about it, pronounced it delicious. The filling is what you'd expect from a quiche, but without the eggs. You thicken the filling (cream, leeks, say no more) with cornflour, pile it into the pastry case, and give it a final blast in the oven.

Thus inspired, and hot on the heels of my outing with the kids in Daisy to Bracknell forest last week, we loaded up the van last Sunday, and headed out to a relatively local beauty spot/place of interest called Combe Gibbet (or 'Combe Giblet' as Pink rather endearingly insisted on calling it). As you might have guessed, it's a hill where they used to hang people. Rather a grisly destination, but the kids were pretty delighted by the potential horror of it all, and all things considered, the view was pretty spectacular at the top.

It was quite windy, though!

"All this wind plays havoc with one's hairdo..."

Anyway, an outing requires a picnic, so I used my new found pastry confidence (and the fact that I had no plain flour left in the cupboard, only spelt flour) to adapt the swede and potato pasties from Veg Everyday to make some mini swede, leek and potato pasties.

We ate them with brown sauce, followed by left over chocolate cake. A feast indeed! 

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The Sunday Bake Off - the Festive Episode & Christmas Cake Part 3 - The Icing

So here it is - pretty much. Christmas 2012. 

We had our annual outing to the panto yesterday (Oh yes we did!) - Aladdin at the Theatre Royal in Winchester with my mother in law who buys us the tickets as a Christmas present, and then went out for a pizza before returning home. I'm not a lover of panto, but I like the one at Winchester. This is the third year we've been. A lot of the actors are the same every year, and the dame is always exceptional. This year there was much heckling from the junior members of the audience and as a result, much improvisation from the cast, which is always a good thing. We had a good meal, and despite the unseasonally mild, wet and windy weather, Winchester looked beautiful with the lights illuminating the high street. Actually, I watched the Wartime Farm at Christmas the other day, and was very interested to learn that the myth of our 'white Christmases' is almost entirely down to Charles Dickens who experienced the frost fair years of the early 19th century and perpetuated the idea that it is always a white Christmas, frosty, glorious in his novels. But I digress.

I was up early this morning. There's no denying that I am a 'lark' and I consider the early morning at the weekends to be 'my time'. The kids have unfettered access to the TV, the Husband sleeps, and usually, I will be out walking the dog. The dog has been staying with mum for the last 10 days, so this morning, I had a rare opportunity to potter in the kitchen.

First up was a mushroom and bean casserole to go in the slow cooker for lunch. My mother in law is a vegetarian, and this seemed to be a likely candidate for an easy lunch, out of a book by Rose Elliot which my mum gave me as an early Christmas present - quick vegetarian meals: a kind of 30 Minute Meals for veggies. Obviously, by adapting it for the slow cooker, I extended the cooking time somewhat, but the principle was the same - easy and tasty. Necessary food sorted, on to the good stuff.

Cranberry Bakewell Tart. I made cranberry jam yesterday, and the pastry (left overnight in the fridge), so it was a matter of lining the tin with the pastry, spreading in the jam and making the almond sponge topping. The pastry was direct from the recipe in Feast - it's a great pastry: including ground almonds, clementine zest and icing sugar with the flour - but you could use shop bought. The quantities in Feast are for a 26cm loose bottomed tart tin. Mine is smaller than that so I had the opportunity to make more mince pies.

The sponge is made by beating together 125g of caster sugar and ground almonds with 3 eggs, and then mixing in 125g of melted slightly cooled unsalted butted. Once it's all mixed, pour it over the jam, sprinkle over some flaked almonds and bake at 180 for about 45mins. You might want to check after 20 minutes and if it's looking like it might brown too much on top, cover with foil.

Just before serving I made a runny icing using the juice from half the clementine and drizzled it over the top of the tart. Nigella goes for a full on covering of royal icing and golden stars, but I've got wise to her sweet tooth, and the clementine-tinged drizzle was enough.

 With the left over pastry, I made some more mince pies. The ones I made a couple of days ago were OK but this pastry was much better, and if I get a chance tomorrow, I may make some more. I used the Cherry & Almond Mincemeat I made a few weeks ago.

 
















Once the tarts were in the oven, I got on with some bread. I have been neglecting my bread making, but re-enthused by the River Cottage course, I've had a sourdough starter up and running and it's now ready to use. I mixed up a 'sponge' last night (using a third of the flour, dried yeast and liquid I was intending to bake with), and then made my full dough this morning, using the sourdough starter as part of the liquid content, as well as the 'sponge'.  There's going to be a lot more of the bread in the New Year, so for now, you'll just have to be satisfied with a photo. 

good & "rustic"!

Last but not least, I iced the Christmas cake. In the end, Dr Oetker answered all my decorating needs. I came across a can of silver shimmer spray in the Co-Op yesterday when I was supposed to be buying a paper, and was irresistibly drawn to it. I already have a pack of ready to roll white icing in the (beautifully ordered) cupboard, so in the end I went for the path of least resistance. After a minor panic when I couldn't remember where in the beautifully ordered cupboards the box of decorating bits had gone, including the heirloom Father Christmas and Polar Bear, all was well, and I went for marzipan and icing stars, all sprayed liberally with silver shimmer. Marvellous.

All in all a very satisfying potter. 

After all that, the mother in law enjoyed her casserole and left with a big slice of the Cranberry Bakewell, and my parents have arrived, bringing the dog back. We've been out for a long walk to gather in holly, the tree is up, the presents are bought and wrapped. We have a full house till Friday, my parents, one of my brothers and his wife, then my father in law. On Saturday, we're off to London to see some fabulous friends, then we're back to host more fabulous friends here for New Year. It will be busy, foodie and fun. So now, with the scent of clove and onion infused milk wafting from the kitchen, ready for the bread sauce, I am setting down the lap top for a while, but I'll be back in 2013, refreshed and ready to blog.  

I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas.  Enjoy!

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What?! More cranberries? Cranberry Jam & possibly a Bakewell Tart

Now you'd think I'd have learned - the fact that I had a bag of cranberries in the freezer left over from last year which I turned into cranberry & orange sauce ready to accompany the Turkey on Tuesday, says something about the way I shop when I'm not concentrating and my head is turned. So what possessed me to virtually chuck a couple of bags of fresh cranberries into my virtual shopping trolley AFTER I'd made the aforesaid sauce is a mystery. But chuck I did, and rather than consign them to the freezer ready to be discovered next year, I decided that this year would be different.

Once again, Nigella has come to my rescue. She has a whole section devoted to cranberries in Feast, first up is Cranberry Jam.

Cranberries are full of pectin so it's a really easy jam to make - just an equal amount of cranberries to caster sugar. I had 600g of cranberries so I put a splash (literally, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan) of water in a large pan, added the cranberries and 600g of sugar and stirred over a low heat till all the sugar was dissolved.

If you haven't sterilised your jars, do so first, and make sure you keep them warm, either in the oven or in a bowl of hot water - otherwise they may crack when you decant the hot jam into them.
It does take a bit of time, and you can tell when it's all dissolved when the syrup that's being produced around the berries looks clear rather than cloudy. If you scoop a little out on the spoon and feel it, the sugar is dissolved when you can't feel anything but sticky syrup.

Then you have to increase the heat and bubble up the contents of the pan till it reaches setting point. This is where I always get the fear with any sort of jam. I was feeling more confident because I know that cranberries set very easily, but even so. In the end, although I did bung in the sugar thermometer, I also set the timer for the 7 minutes the Goddess indicates. The jam hadn't quite reached temperature at the 7 minute point but it was looking pretty jam like and I was worried that it might start to burn.

The jam went straight into the jars, and there was enough left over to go on the brioche that I made yesterday, for breakfast. Happy times.

And if I get round to it, there will be a Cranberry Bakewell Tart on the menu for tomorrow's lunch. Watch this space!

I am, of course, linking up to Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella event, hosted this month by Laura on her blog lauralovescakes . Enjoy!

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Blackberry frangipane tarts

On Tuesday, I found the first decent blackberries of the season. Typically I was out with the dog and had nothing with me intended for blackberrying purposes, so I had to make do with one of the bags I carry around (I have at least one in every pocket I own, often more) to clear up after the dog. It hadn't been used for its original purpose.

I didn't get many berries, but enough to turn into a pudding and make the kids feel cherished (perhaps) after their second day at school. They seemed to be knackered already after their first day back. I should be used to this by now - it happens every start of term, never more so than after the 6 week break, but it's hard going. The Husband had been away since Monday morning as well, so the kids were missing him as well as trying to settle into their new routine.

Good then, that tea was a big hit on a number of levels. We had crispy potatoes (thinly sliced, new-ish potatoes, par-boiled, then roasted on a baking tray with a sprinkling of sea salt, olive oil and crushed garlic in a hot oven till crispy) green & runner beans and poached eggs, all of which came from the garden (smug meal - sorry!).

I based the tarts on a recent Good Food recipe, but as usual made a few little changes. I couldn't find the original on their website so I can't link, but it was in the September 2012 issue.They are very, very good.

















Ingredients:

300g shortcrust pastry
cherry jam (which is what I had to hand - raspberry would be nice, or blackberry if you have some)
100g soft butter
100g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
1tbsp plain flour plus extra for rolling out the pastry
1 large egg
drop of almond extract
blackberries - I used about 60
a handful of flaked almonds
icing sugar


Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180 fan/gas 6.

Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry. Using an 8-9cm cutter (or the top of a pint glass, like I did), cut out 12 rounds and use to line a 12 hole bun tray. Put about 1/2 tsp of jam into the bottom of each case.

You'll notice how I go for the 'rustic' look...

 Beat together the butter, sugar and ground almonds, add in the egg, almond extract and flour and continue to beat together till light and fluffy.

Divide the mixture between the cases - it's quite tight but you'll get about a heaped tsp, maybe a little more to each case. Press the blackberries gently into the top of the mixture - I used 4-5 per tart as they weren't huge - if you buy them you'll probably get bigger fruit so will need fewer - and sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Bake for 15-20 minutes till lightly golden.

Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar to serve if desired (pretty cake stand optional, but I got this for my birthday earlier this year and decided I hadn't used it enough - and isn't it LOVELY??).

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Tomato and 'Vegetarian Pasta Cheese' Tart

After our lovely trip to the Farmers Market this morning, I was trying to find a tomato tart recipe that I’m sure I have got somewhere. I couldn’t find the one I was thinking of, but tomato tart was what I wanted to make with the gorgeous baby plum tomatoes I bought from The Tomato Stall.

well - I didn't buy ALL of them, just 2 punnets

I made the easy tomato tart from Simon Rimmer’s ‘The Accidental Vegetarian’ a couple of months ago, so I thought it only fair to give St Hugh’s version a go. It’s in Veg Everyday, and is basically an open tomato tart. These open tarts are just brilliant and dead easy. You can put almost anything on them – all you need is a block of puff pastry. Keep it in the freezer – it defrosts really quickly and is a complete winner. Even better, this version gave me an opportunity to break into the Bookhams ‘Twineham Grange Vegetarian Pasta Cheese’ that I also bought from the market this morning.

So, for tonight’s supper, here’s what I did:

Tomato and Vegetarian Pasta Cheese Tart

Ingredients: 375g puff pastry, 400 g baby plum tomatoes, each sliced into 3-4 slices (on the diagonal is pretty if you can be bothered) depending on how big they are, 1 finely chopped garlic clove, 50 g Vegetarian Pasta Cheese, finely grated, 1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary, salt & pepper, olive oil

Method: Set the oven to 190⁰ C, lightly oil a baking sheet – the one I use is a shallow rectangular one, approx 23 cm x 34 cm, then roll out the pastry to fit, and score (but don’t cut through) a 1 cm border all round the edge. Sprinkle the garlic over the pastry, then arrange the tomato slices on top. I was feeling particularly artistic this afternoon, so I tried to alternate the red and yellow slices. Grind over some pepper and salt and trickle over a little olive oil, then bake for about 15 minutes.

When the tomatoes are looking tender and starting to brown, take the tart out of the oven, sprinkle over the rosemary and cheese.

Return to the oven for another 10 or so minutes. The cheese will be melting and may be even a little browned, and the pastry cooked.

I served it with Yotam Ottolenghi’s Green Lentils, Aparagus,and Watercress salad from Plenty, amd broad beans, also from today's haul,

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Not Quite Veg Everyday, but trying: Simple suppers

This weekend has been a bit chaotic already, and here, now in the calm before the storm that will commence at 11.00 a.m. when a hoard (well, may be 12 - I'm not quite sure how many are coming) 5 & 6 year olds descend on us to celebrate Pink's 6th birthday, I wanted to quickly blog about last night's supper.

We were at friends' for lunch (and delicious it was too) but my mother in law was coming later on for the night (and above-mentioned celebrations) so I knew I needed to produce something more than a boiled egg for an evening meal. She is vegetarian, and although I have been cooking much more veggie food generally, I always feel a challenge to cook something other than the heavily lentil and garlic based dishes that we tend to have at her house. With an eye to the fact that I had to ice a pink heart birthday cake and make the werewithal to 'pin the crown on the princess' last night, it had to be easy. I also made extra on the basis that when the apocalypse is over, we (adults) might actually want something more substantial than cheese sandwiches and fairy cakes for lunch.

Summer Vegetable soup

The soup is based on one out of the current Good Food mag,. The recipe doesn't appear to be up on the website yet, so no link to the original, and here is my version:

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped
3 leeks, finely sliced
3 courgettes - quartered lengthwise and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
11/2 litres of vegetable stock (I use marigold bouillon powder)
125g asparagus spears, woody ends removed and cut into inch long pieces (leaving the lovely tip bits intact)

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a big pan, and gently cook the celery and leek till soft - about 8-10 mins. Add the courgette and garlic and continue to cook for 5 mins or so, then add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 10 mins. Throw in the asparagus about 4 minutes before the end of the cooking time, season and serve.

If you've got the magazine, the recipe is called Summer Vegetable Minstrone. I was a little confused as to the minestrone tag because there didn't appear to be any pasta or other carbs in it, and another time, I might add some little pasta in as soon as the stock started to boil. It would need to be little pasta though (quick cooking) because you wouldn't want to over cook the veg.

Sinple Tomato Tart

The tart was really good and dead easy. I got The Accidental Vegetarian secondhand on Amazon and it's definitely worth a read. I didn't quite follow his recipe, adding in some thyme, and I used more pastry to have a little left over for lunch today (although it was so good that there's not much left...). This could also be called 'How frozen puff pastry can save your life' - there are many, many variations on a theme of just topping a sheet of puff pastry and whacking it in the oven for 25 minutes. Genius.

375g pre-rolled sheet of puff pastry
8 plum tomatoes
a couple of sprigs of thyme (leaves only)
2 tsp of caster sugar
salt & pepper
1 good knob of butter, melted

First, peel the tomatoes. yes, I know, I wasn;t going to either, but then I thought I would just do it and I think it was worth it. So put on the kettlr, put the tomatoes in a bowl and as soon as the kettle is boiled, pour the boiling water over the tomatoes and leave them for a couple of minutes. One by one, get a tomatoes frm the water (you can spear them with a fork if the water is still too hot) and using a knife, make a slit in the skin. You should find that the skin just kind of shrinks back and you can just pull it off  quite easily. Slice them into pound coin thick slices.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan.

Lightly grease the baking sheet you are going to use and put the pastry onto it. Lay the tomatoes onto the pastry, leaving a rim of uncovered pastry all round the edge. Youc an slightly overlap the tomato slices and it will look quite pretty! Sprinkle over the thyme leaves, and caster sugar and grind over salt and pepper, then brush with the the melted butter - or you could drizzle with olive oil - and then bake in the oven for around 25 minutes till the tomatoes are looking cooked and caramelised and the pastry is golden and puffed.

I did serve, as suggested with rocket, dressed with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (shaken together in a jam jar first).

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Nettle and bacon (or BACON and sssh nettle!) quiche

Nettle quiche.  I served up a vat of nettle soup  one lunchtime while my French friends were staying and they thought it was très bon. We got on to talking about how their village holds an annual food/foraging festival, each year focusing on a different plant, with lots of different dishes made from said ingredient. They said that one year it had been nettles, and that they were very good in quiche.

I scribbled nettle quiche onto my menu plan for this week, then rashly declared to the world that I was indeed going to be making nettle quiche when I posted my menu plan as a comment on Jen’s Place’s post on Monday. Kind of meant it would be a cop out not to.

As ever with these things, a little more time would have been good. I managed to get some pastry knocked together using the only recipe which works for me which is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s pastry recipe in River Cottage Everyday – the recipe for poached leek and blue vinney tart (delicious altogether by the way). It’s probably his standard pastry recipe but now I know where it is, I always use it from that book. I’d forgotten how labour intensive collecting the nettles can be, but as they were just at the bottom of the garden, I managed a colander’s worth and to dump them in a sink of cold water before I had to leave to get the kids from school. I also managed not to get my hands stung, and, remembering the pain (metaphorical and physical - and that despite wearing rubber gloves) that stripping out the stalks was when I made the soup  I tried to just take the top 2-4 leaves, to save me the trouble later on. 

When I got back from the school run, I managed to fill the time I had before Pink needed escorting to Rainbows by lining and blind baking the pastry case, frying up the onions and bacon (yes, I felt nettle quiche would be more attractive to the hordes if it was nettle AND BACON quiche – or perhaps nettle and bacon quiche - a cop out perhaps, but who cares?) and wilting the nettles. To be honest aside from the stinging potential, I treated them just like spinach, and the taste is not dissimilar, although less earthy – which might be a good thing in some people’s book (although I just adore spinach). So I steamed the leaves, chopped them up and squeezed out the water, then just scattered the mashed up green stuff – because let’s face it that’s what it looks like – over the onions and bacon in the base of the quiche.

The rest of the quiche last night was 2 large eggs and a small bantam egg plus the egg white left over from the pastry recipe (which uses a yolk) the remains of a carton of crème fraiche – probably a good rounded tablespoon plus a bit and some salt and pepper all whisked up and poured on top followed with some grated cheddar. If I hadn’t had the egg white to use, I might have thinned the custard mixture out with a little milk.

I baked it at 180⁰ for about 30 minutes – until the custard is set enough and the top is a light golden brown (ish). 

Et voila, as they say in France

ok, so perhaps the nettles got a little unevenly distributed, but hey...

I wouldn’t say it was a hands down raging success, but worth the effort. Objectively, it was good. The Husband and I enjoyed it with new potatoes and some p.s.b. and Blue and Pink ate most of it without too much moaning, which is about as much as I was hoping for as neither of them are particularly keen on spinachy type greens. Blue was defeated by the last bit by the pastry crust - interestingly, this is my favourite bit - just because I’m not great at making pastry doesn’t mean I’m not a pig when it comes to eating it  ...

Finally, just because I am so rubbish at making pastry, please do admire the pastry case that I managed to produce for the quiche - not a crack to be seen - I was so pleased with it. But then, I don't get out much...

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Not Quite Veg Everyday - but trying: Cheesy peasy puff turnover

So I had 2 options for supper this evening. Take it or leave it... oh no – that was yesterday when I dug out a venison and rabbit casserole out of the freezer. “What? A real dead rabbit?” Pink looked a little horrified. So much for smugly thinking you’ve explained to the children about the food chain.

Anyway, today the choice (from my point of view) was either chachouka or a new thing cheesy peasy puff turnover, from Veg Everyday – one of the ‘store cupboard suppers’.  The Husband was due to be entertaining Americans this evening. He had been bemoaning the fact, until I opened the supper debate at breakfast, at which point he decided that actually he might prefer to drive 2 hours back to Heathrow for steak. Can’t imagine why...

As all the rest of the meals for the week – until Monday in fact - are already in the freezer on account of the fact that I am catering for the masses, starting tomorrow with the arrival of my French exchange and her family (yes, we got on and yes, we’re still in touch!), peaking on Saturday afternoon with the cake and fizz fest planned to celebrate my 40^th, and lingering on into Monday when my parents, one of my brothers (and family) and the French contingent leave – I thought I’d go for the cheesy peasy puff thing because it would give me something new to blog about and the oven was going to be on anyway for bread and cake baking.

I think I have previously suggested that Hugh’s storecupboard might be somewhat differently stocked to mine (I haven’t yet found a recipe in Veg Everyday for 2 out of date tins of pineapple rings, something that might or might not be a can of Italian seafood salad and some lemon jelly circa 1995) but I may have been hasty. This is a great recipe and will definitely be reappearing on our menu.

hmmmmmm cheesy peas

I made it with my own modifications, and the kids just loved it. For some reason, Blue didn't mind the egginess (which I was worried about, I'll admit - I was even ready to offer HP sauce) and both he and Pink scoffed it down. Cue warm glow of good-mumminess all round. The only thing I would say is that making it in a rectangle like I did (Hugh makes a triangle but I'd rolled out the pastry before I read the instructions properly) meant that the 2 ends were short on peas and big on egg.

I did it with potato chunks also baked in the oven (heat up some olive oil on a baking sheet, spread out the potato chunks and turn them over in the oil and sprinkle with a little salt), and green beans.

In the end, the Husband appeared just in time to nab the last piece – he got an end which didn’t have any peas but some eggy cheesy filling. So much for steak - but as the kids had eaten all the potatoes, he got special privileges - oven chips...

Here's my version:

250g ready made puff pastry

100g frozen peas

50g mature cheddar

1 large egg

Pre-heat oven to 200c . Roll out the pastry (if it’s not already rolled) into a rectangle and carefully tip the peas in the centre, but spread along the length. Grate the cheese on top and some salt and pepper. Beat the egg, then brush along the edges of the pastry and then carefully pour all but 1tsp worth of egg carefully over the peas and cheese. It will run a little, so quite quickly fold up the edges of the pastry to cover the peas and make a parcel. Fold up the ends too and push down with a finger or the end of a fork or something depending on how pretty you want it to look. Brush the parcel with the last of the egg, place on a baking sheet and bake for 20 mins until golden brown.

Voila:

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Pink soup and a not so blue Blue after all

Soup of the week is roasted beetroot without horseradish cream. I am hoping (perhaps over ambitiously) that the pink-ness of the soup will appeal to Pink and get her over her dislike of this particular root vegetable. I have to say that she enjoyed it more than the Husband and Blue when made into the beetroot variation of Hugh’s Pumpkin and Raisin tea loaf. I think I mentioned this in an  earlier post. I had over-ordered on the beetroot front and was looking for recipes to use it in. A friend had recommended the tea loaf recipe (although not the beetroot variation) so I thought I would give it a go. Hugh promises purple marbling. My version was more ‘pink flecking’, but it tasted great, and not a hint of the earthiness which I think puts Pink off. I say that it is without Horseradish cream because at the time of writing, the horseradish is still in the ground and the ground is frozen solid. Chances of extracting are virtually zero (and that’s better than the current outside temperature). That said there might be some in the freezer. I will need to investigate. The soup isn’t for eating till tomorrow so there may yet be time for horseradish cream.

I had far more success on the root veg front this week with the swede and potato pasties out of Veg Everyday. Blue is continuing to lobby for more meat back on the menu, and looked particularly cheated when I advised him that the pasty did not contain meat. I had tried to avoid actually spelling this out to him, but he likes to know where he stands so his questions became more specific as my answers became more and more vague, until he eventually pinned me down. “What is in the pasties?” (this on the way home from school) . I told him. “Oh”. Then “I thought when you said ‘pasties’ you meant like those ones you cooked with meat in them.” Oh dear.

Despite my recent saga with Sainsburys over packets of bought puff pastry, I pushed my pastry boundaries and made the rough puff for these little babies (the bought stuff is for a Hugh onion tart, culled from Sarah Raven and included in Veg Everyday). I think I have made a sweet variation of this before out of Domestic Goddess, and used it to make a lovely tarte tatin type pud. Actually, I think the other half of the pasty that I made for that is languishing somewhere, unloved and unlabeled at the bottom of the freezer. I have a vague memory that almond danishes were on the cards at one stage. I must re-investigate.

Back to the pasties, though. This pastry is really easy and I write as a pastry-phobe. I am getting better with practise, and it’s experiences like this that boost my confidence. It all worked, and rolled out brilliantly. You have to do lots of rolling because the butter starts off as cubes in the flour, and you have to roll it out, fold it over itself and then turn it a quarter-turn, and do it again - 5 times.

first rolling!

cubes of butter - the unrolled dough

I made double quantities, which gave me 4 large pasties and then 6 smaller ones to go in lunchboxes, and there was plenty of filling (just a tiny bit too much in fact).

unbaked

If you’re interested, I did add the ‘optional’ cheddar. For me, cheese is never ‘optional’. But then, I am not a ‘swede-purist’, unlike Hugh (that’s what he calls himself – it’s there in print.). I was very gratified to see that Pink had eaten her pasty almost before I had sat down, faffing around as I was trying to do 100 other things. She had another half, too, Blue pronounced it ‘pretty good actually’ and they both wanted to take a cold one in to school for lunch today.

baked!

I’ve had a mad cook this evening – over the course of today (well starting last night) I have made some loaves with my newly revived sourdough starter following the River Cottage Bread Handbook’s method (‘My Sourdough’). It’s looking pretty good, although I think my starter (and so sponge) was a bit sloppy so the dough was similarly. Not good for the stress levels trying to do a first knead at the same time as you should be walking your small daughter to school with the dough showing no sign of becoming smooth and satiny. In the end I just had to say b******s and leave it to rise. Still - apparently no harm done. I retrieved the second half of the cookie dough that I’d squirreled into the freezer last week and baked some more cookies – I was interested to see if this ‘freeze half the dough’ thing would work – well what do you know, it did! And as the oven was on, I managed too roast the beetroot for the soup – or was it because I’d planned the roast beetroot that I baked the bread and the cookies. I can’t remember, but now the oven's off, the kids are in bed and it's G&T time. Happy Friday!

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