52 Cookbooks #11: Veal and mushroom pie

You can't beat a pie. And you definitely can't beat a Hairy Bikers pie. With my parents coming for dinner this week it was the ideal opportunity to make one, so this week my recipe comes from The Hairy Bikers' Perfect Pies.

I had some veal from our local butcher in the freezer so decided to use that instead of chicken. Apart from that I pretty much followed the recipe for the "deep-filled chicken and mushroom pie" - it's a pie with a shortcrust bottom and a puff pastry lid. 

About eating veal.  The veal I buy comes from my local butcher and he sources all of his meat responsibly so I have no qualms about buying or eating veal. This is an excerpt from an article in the Guardian:  

"British rose veal has already won the ethical stamp of approval from the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) but it remains a niche market in the UK, just0.1% of the meat we consume each year."

The shortcrust pastry was home made but thankfully there was no need to make puff pastry, which seems a faff to far for me. 

During the morning as well as making the pastry and lining the pie dish I made the filling allowing it to cool before assembling later. As is the cook's prerogative I tasted some and it was good...

In the end the shop bought puff pastry caused it's own mini-drama as M&S were having one of those weeks where they weren't selling pastry... of any kind.  Usually I'd have some in the freezer, but couldn't see any on my freezer lists (yes, I know it's a bit OCD to list the contents of my freezer, but it works for me, usually). 

A mini-drama because getting out to the supermarket proved impossible in between the Gardeners arriving half-unexpectedly to fit some trellis, my parents arriving and unloading what looked like enough bags for a two week stay (they were here overnight ahead of a week in Dubrovnik) as well as getting the house ship shape for their stay. 

So I asked MOH to pick some up on his way home. By this stage it was the sort of conversation that ended with "just get any sort of puff pastry, or failing that any kind of pastry or we'll be having an open-topped pie for tea..."  Not wanting to do wrong MOH arrived home with a selection of puff pastry - a frozen block (hmmmnn), an unfrozen block and some ready rolled unfrozen sheets. By now it was close to 19:30 so the last option won...

And breathe. With its puff pastry lid hastily thrown on, the pie was in the oven. My "pastry luck" continued (see my lastpuff pastry attempt) - somehow it shrunk away from the edge a bit and seemed to square itself off. Looking into the oven my pie looked like it had a duvet thrown over the top of it!

It looked like this when it came out do the oven, none of us minded the slightly sunken pastry as it tasted divine, although the bottom was a little soggy!

If anyone knows why I have this trouble with pastry lids (puff pastry in particular) I'd be keen to know - thanks. 

The verdict:

• It tasted great, there were four clean plates at the end of this meal
• Veal was a good substitute for the chicken breasts listed in the recipe
• A mix of shortcrust and puff pastry was a good combination
• You can't beat a good pie, and this was a good pie!

And guess what, when I put the surplus blocks of pastry in the freezer, guess what I found?  Yep, some puff pastry - I'd had some all along and my mini-pastry-drama could have been avoided!!  It was clearly one of those days...

This week The Good Life Mum is hosting 52 Cookbooks, so pop over there and see what everyone's been cooking. 

52 Cookbooks #10: Choc chip cookies

I've become rather partial to the odd choc chip cookie or two, especially the giant ones that M&S sell. They're 59p each though and while that won't break the bank, it all adds up. They helpfully sell a five pack for £2, but unfortunately where choc chip cookies are involved my willpower disagrees that these should last a week...

So imagine how pleased I was to find a choc chip cookie recipe as I browsed through the book that accompanied the second series of The Great British Bake Off.

I thought I should definitely give this a go, nothing to do with the fact that the recipe says "makes 24" honest! The recipe itself is straightforward enough, although there is a random ingredient listed: 50g of chopped pecans or walnut pieces.

I went along with the recipe adding some walnut pieces and wondered if they were that good in choc chip cookies why didn't Mr M&S include them...

The trickiest part of the recipe (apart from not eating the cookie dough!) was laying the heaped teaspoons out on baking trays and knowing how much to use to get to the magical number of 24.  I didn't make it to 24 in the end, it was nearer 20. Ok it was 18 but I don't think I ate six cookies worth of cookie dough so perhaps mine were larger. They're not as giant as the M&S ones though, which is a very good thing.

This is the second batch waiting to go into the oven. I realised mine weren't spreading as the recipe said so used a teaspoon to flatten these before they went in the oven. They looked good when they came out.

The verdict:

• These were quick to make and quick to cook (each batch was in the oven for 9 minutes)
• The walnut pieces alongside the choc chips were ok, but I'd probably use more chocolate next time
• As you may have gathered from that last comment I'd make them again, actually I'd try some of the other biscuits in the book or experiment with some stem ginger with dark choc chips...
• You could fancy these up, if you needed to by dipping half into chocolate and leaving to set
• I'm sure these are way better for me than the giant ones I mentioned earlier, but I do wonder how I'm going to make them last!

Thanks again to Mary at Keynko for hosting, and be sure to check out her Chocolate and Honeycomb Cheesecake. 

52 Cookbooks #9: Chilli con sausage!

I know it's not the usual combination. The recipe is actually titled sausage con carne in the book, but as carne is meat and the meat is sausage I think chilli con sausage is more apt.

The cookbook I've used this week is Just One Pot by Lindsey Bareham.  Lindsey used to (and may still have) a daily column in the Evening Standard each with a recipe that commuters could use for dinner that night. That must be quite a challenge to keep going over many years! And I must say we've got a couple of the recipes cut out of the paper that we use occasionally. 

This is a great book and most of the recipes are one pot affairs. They're also recipes that are easy to cook after a day at work. This was ideal for me as despite not working at the moment, originally I planned to cook this Friday night, after having gone out for lunch which I knew was likely to be a longish one. It was delayed for a day though as MOH texted to say he was feeling unwell and wouldn't want any tea. 

He's better (but there is still a lingering cough) and we had this for dinner last night. The surprise ingredients - apart from sausage - is chorizo and ground cumin. There's also oregano and the more usual tomatoes, chilli powder and kidney beans. The surprise ingredients do, I think bring a certain smokiness to the end dish.

MOH was sceptical about the whole thing, but his plate was clean and he'd eat it again! High praise indeed. Incase you're wondering how I got around the obligatory green stuff, all I'm saying is guacamole!

The verdict:

• I'd definitely use sausages in a chilli again

• I'd also add chorizo and cumin to future more traditional minced beef chilli con carnes

• It'd be interesting to use different "flavoured" sausages - I used pork and black pepper from the butchers

• It's also an economical dinner, I used four sausages and it would easily serve three, perhaps four at a push.