Moroccan lamb & chickpea stew

Sometimes when I'm cooking dinner it goes wrong. I'm not in the mood. It takes me too long to decide what to make, my timing's out or I rush it and get stressed. I've learnt that the key is to decide and plan what I'm going to make early on in the day, instead of opening and reopening cupboard doors in desperation at 18:00. Then the cooking will hopefully go right - the thing I make is just what everyone feels like eating, or it satisfyingly uses up leftover bits of things in the fridge.

Today it was grey and dull and damp. I found some lamb in the fridge which needed using up and a can of chickpeas that had been knocking about in the cupboard for months. Some brightly coloured spices and a bit of simmering later and there was a big pot of bubbling lamb & chickpea stew on the hob. Just what was needed to put some colour into January's cheeks.

I sort of made this up as I was going along, so I decided to paint and blog the recipe so I can make it again.

To make the stew (serves 4)

350-500g lamb, diced (I used diced lamb shoulder)
1 to 2 tbsp plain flour
2 onions, finely chopped
3 carrots, diced
2 cloves garlic
1 to 2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin, ground
1 to 2 tbsp paprika
1 tsp wild thyme
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can chopped tomatoes
500 ml stock (chicken or vegetable stock is ok if you don't have lamb stock)
1 can chickpeas
Cous cous, to serve

Trim any excess fat off the pieces of lamb. Coat the pieces of lamb with the flour.
Heat the oil in a heavy pan and brown the meat on all sides.
Once the lamb's well on it's way to browning, add the garlic, onion and carrot with a little more oil if necessary.
Once the veg is browning & beginning to soften and the onion is turning translucent, add the herbs & spices and mix well.
Add the chopped tomatoes, and mix again. Then pour in the stock and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 75 minutes, then drain and add the chickpeas.
Simmer for another 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Serve with cous cous and green beans or fresh sliced greens.


I hope you all have enough colour in your cheeks this January. I have to admit, I'm counting down the days til spring.

Christmas star biscuits

I have been bad at blogging again... mainly due to being tired from work and Christmas festivities... I have been on late autumn walks, Christmas shopping trips, seen Florence + the Machine at the O2 (amazing), gone on the Harry Potter studio tour, been ice skating, spent time with family and gone rummaging in antique shops. I've also painted decorations for 150 mini Christmas cakes at work which has probably killed any excitement for our own Christmas cake this year. I am loving the time of year though. I'm sitting in the living room with tree lights and candles for company, and there's so much good food in the fridge already. Happy!

I was recently commissioned to make a lot of biscuits (200!) to be put in jars and given as Christmas gifts. This was my second large-scale baking commission so I was slightly more adept at coping with the amounts. Baking on a big scale requires you to consider so many things you normally don't think about - like how much biscuit mix the food mixer can handle, and what to do when you run out of wire racks...

These biscuits are really very nice. I used a recipe for shortbread, so you get that lovely crumbly texture, but I substituted some of the flour for ground almonds. This gives the biscuits a bit more of a moist, melt-in-the-mouth constitency and provides greater depth of flavour. Basically: even more tasty.

Also: you must use butter. Not baking margarine. Butter tastes so much better.

Scroll down for the recipe...

 

To make the biscuits:

60g golden caster sugar
120g unsalted butter
1 tsp almond extract
125g plain flour
50g ground almonds

Cream together the sugar, butter and extract.
Sift over the flour, pour in the ground almonds and mix until a dough is formed.
Shape into a disc, wrap and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan 160).
Roll out the dough to 5mm thickness on a flour dusted surface, and cut out small stars.
Place on a lined baking tray and bake for 15-20 mins until golden around the edges.

Warning: I am not responsible for how much biscuit dough you consume during this process. Or for how many 'testers' you feel obliged to taste. Not mentioning the stars that may have unfortunately lost their limbs in the oven...

Once the biscuits had cooled I wrapped them in cellophane, put them in Kilner jars, added some ribbon, gingham bows and homemade labels (decorated with sections of doilies) and voila! Easy peasy Christmas gifts.

Jammy baking

 



























I used raspberry jam to make a little feast of pretty edible treats, as a kind of last hurrah to summer. All floral, pink and light, before autumn begins properly and I get stuck into squashes and gingerbread lattes and pies.

The first thing I made were jammy dodgers. These are like the ones you can buy, except better because they taste homemade. An alternative is to make shortbread biscuits and sandwich them together with jam, but this biscuit is made with milk and is a little bit smoother and creamier. I essentially made up the recipe after failing to find anything suitable online. Somehow it worked!

I also made raspberry cupcakes from 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery' (a wonderful book for all cake lovers). You lightly swirl raspberry jam into the cake mixture, meaning you get the odd really jammy bit of cake - it's good. I didn't go all out and spoon jam inside the cake after baking, then ice the cakes with white chocolate buttercream, as the recipe instructs, but that extra effort does transform them from good to brilliant. It was just white water icing and pink glitter for lazy old me. They were still delicious though.


Recipe - Jammy dodgers

Makes 12 jammy dodgers (i.e. 24 biscuits sandwiched together)

150g butter
75g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour, sifted
3 tbsp milk
100g raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Rub together the butter, sugar, vanilla and flour (or use an electric mixer) until sticky breadcrumbs are formed.
Add the milk a tbsp at a time, until a dough forms - don't let it get too sticky.
Wrap the ball of dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 5-6mm thick. Use a 3 inch round cutter to cut 12 circles, then use a 1.5 inch round cutter to cut out smaller circles from the centres. Gather all scraps, roll out again and cut 12 more whole 3 inch circles.
Bake everything on a lined tray for 12-15 minutes until pale gold and fairly crisp.
When cool, sandwich together with 1-1.5 tsp of jam, then leave in the fridge to set a little before eating. If you can resist.


Recipe - Raspberry cupcakes

Makes 12 regular cupcakes

110g butter, softened
180g caster sugar
2 large eggs
125g self raising flour, sifted
120g plain flour, sifted
125ml semi skimmed milk, at room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (160 for fan ovens). Line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases.
In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar until pale and smooth, which should take about 3-5 minutes using an electric mixer.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Combine the two flours in a separate bowl.
Mix the milk in a jug with the vanilla extract.
Add one third of the flours to the creamed butter and sugar mixture, and beat well. Pour in a third of the milk and beat again. Repeat until all the flour and milk have been added.
Gently fold in the raspberry jam until it's mostly combined. You want streaks of jam through the mixture, rather than an evenly coloured batter.
Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, filling them to about two thirds full.
Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until slightly raised and golden brown.
Leave the cakes in the tin for about 10 minutes before cooling on a wire rack.
(Optional:)
Once they are cooled, cut a small hole in the centre of each cake and carefully place a teaspoon of jam inside. Ice the cakes with buttercream.

Nutella & hazelnut/blackcurrant & almond loaf cake

This is a cake that just has to be made. It is so good. So good I can't articulate its good-ness. And it's foolproof - all you do is mix, and bake. It's lovely eaten warm. Especially if you're making the Nutella version, because then the chocolate filling melts in your mouth. The moist, nutty sponge probably will too.


Ingredients -

150g self raising flour
100g ground almonds/ground hazelnuts
175g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten
Few drops almond essence
4 tbsp milk
150g high fruit blackcurrant jam/Nutella
25g flaked almonds

Do this -

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius.
Line a 900g loaf tin with baking paper.
Tip the flour and ground nuts into a bowl (to make ground hazelnuts, just put whole blanched hazelnuts into a sealed bag and crush with a rolling pin - they grind really easily).
Add the butter, sugar, eggs, almond essence and milk.
Beat with a handheld electric whisk for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
Spoon half the cake mix into the tin, then spoon the jam/spread evenly over the top.
Cover with the remaining cake mix then swirl through the mixture with a skewer.
Smooth the top and cover with flaked almonds.
Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours until firm to the touch and golden brown.


Recipe adapted from here.
And here is what the blackcurrant and almond version looks like, in case you need further tempting (photo courtesy of Waitrose):

An easy minestrone

I own some much-loved recipe books - Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, Lorraine Pascal's Baking Made Easy, Peyton & Byrne's British Baking, The National Trust Teatime Baking Book - I could go on. And much-loved recipes too, yellowed cuttings from magazines and newspapers, little recipe cards, handwritten scrawls passed down through the family. But when the kitchen is full of 'bits' of ingredients left over from previous meals, I want to use them up rather than have to buy ingredients for another recipe.

So I improvise, and make something up.

Which sounds more impressive than it is, because anybody can make a soup out of what's-left-in-the-fridge-on-Friday. Really. And minestrone - this minestrone, anyway - is just that, a glorified soup-come-stew that will accept any withered old ingredient chucked its way and, given a bit of patience and slow simmering, transform it into the most tasty and satisfying of suppers.

Here's what I used. You can chop and change the ingredients to suit what's left in your kitchen - just keep the proportions of stock, vegetables, meat, carbs and seasoning the same, and you'll have a winner on your hands. And that slightly-past-it bag of greens in the back won't have gone to waste after all.

8 sausages
2 tbsp olive oil
4 small sticks celery
2 leeks
1 large onion
1 carrot
2 cloves garlic
Bunch of purple sprouting broccoli/shredded chard, cabbage, any greens
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin cannellini beans
1 litre stock (to match sausages, or a mix of beef and chicken, or veg)
Big handful fresh parsley
Small handful fresh thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the sausages/meat you are using, or cook in oven as you normally would. Leave to cool a little.

Meanwhile, chop up the celery, leeks, onion and carrot and steam for 10 minutes until starting to soften.

Then fry this veg gently in olive oil for another 20-30 minutes - or as long as possible - until soft and tasty but not turning to mush.

Add the garlic, parsley, thyme and rosemary, stir to combine, then tip in the tomatoes and greens.

Mix together, and cook for 5 minutes. Then add the sausages/meat, chopped into manageable chunks.

Now begin to add the stock. Add about 700ml first, or enough to cover everything, then add more during simmering, as lots of liquid will be lost through evaporation. You will probably end up using the whole litre.

Season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil then simmer for as long as possible – the longer, the tastier. About 20 minutes before serving stir in the cannellini beans, or chopped up spaghetti.

Serve with foccacia or ciabatta bread. A basil pesto garnish is good too!

 

Spanish chocolate cake!

It was my brother's birthday a few days before mine. We weren't sure what kind of cake to bake him, til I came across a recipe for 'Spanish chocolate cake' in the latest Sainsbury's magazine. Perfect.
A good thing about this cake is that - for a chocolate cake - it uses fairly healthy ingredients: ground almonds, olive oil and orange juice instead of butter. Maybe it's these ingredients that make it 'Spanish'? When I tasted the cake mixture pre-bake all I could taste was olive oil which was a tad concerning (it tasted like those Spanish tortas de aceite which I don't really like). Relievedly the long baking time of the cake allows this taste to dissipate and be replaced by a delicious chocolate orange flavour.
Another good thing is that it's the easiest recipe in the world to make and results in a very moist loaf - I'm no fan of stick-in-your-throat dry chocolate cake - rich and moreish, and like a chocolate cake should be. 

Spanish chocolate cake (taken from Sainsbury's magazine June 2012)

Ingredients

125g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds
175g caster sugar (I used 125g)
3 large eggs, beaten
200ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
finely grated zest of 1 large orange
1 tsp vanilla extract
100ml freshly squeezed orange juice

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, fan 160, gas 4. Grease a 1kg loaf tin with olive oil/butter and line with baking paper.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt into a mixing bowl.
3. Stir in the ground almonds and caster sugar.
4. Make a well in the centre and add the beaten eggs, olive oil, orange zest and juice and mix to a smooth batter.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. (Cover the cake with baking paper after 50 mins.)
6. Remove cake from tin and leave to cool.

It's meant to be eaten as is, served with strawberries or raspberries, but as this was a birthday cake we decided to ice it. The cake comes out very uneven on top (cracked and crater like) so we sliced bits off to make it flat (the excess had to be sampled, obviously) and used simple chocolate water icing and smarties to decorate.

Will yours last as long as ours did?

Heavenly chocolate chunk cookies on a rainy afternoon

So I'm going to be really British and talk about the recent weather we've been having: rain, and lots of it. It would be easy to moan about the number of times I've cycled home from work in an absolute deluge and come through the front door sopping wet, or about how any outfit I've worn has been hidden under a sexy black shapeless anorak. And I am craving some warm sunny days. But if I'm honest, I haven't totally hated the rain. It's atmospheric. It heralds the odd exciting clap of thunder. It patters down outside and keeps me company when I'm up late reading. I went for a quick run in between showers yesterday and saw that all the trees and plants look transformed by it, looking full, green and summery.

Today brought another rainy afternoon. So I turned it into a positive thing. I stayed in the bright warm kitchen, rain tumbling against the window. A cup of peppermint tea, Ella Fitzgerald playing, and a few hours of blissful baking. Because if you're going to try and enjoy the rain, you might as well do it properly.

First of all I made dark chocolate chunk cookies. They remind me of childhood baking, and I realised that I've never really made them since! Biscuits, yes - gingerbread at Christmas, almond kourabiedes, sesame and tahini biscuits - but not the huge, chewy, crisp cookies you see in cafes and bakeries.
I spent a long time hunting down a recipe and eventually went with one from the Hummingbird Bakery book. I was hesitant, because I've tried their muffin recipe a couple of times and it's never produced an amazing muffin. But I didn't need to worry as these turned out perfectly. Just the right size, good ratio of chocolate to dough, crisp round the edges and chewy inside. Yum indeed.

Ingredients (makes 24)

225g butter/margarine
350g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
225g dark chocolate, roughly chopped (read: bashed with a rolling pin)

Method

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Cream together the butter and sugar (with a whisk, in a mixer or by hand) until light and really fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well. Beat in the vanilla extract.
Add the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and mix well until a smooth dough is formed.
Stir in the chopped chocolate until evenly dispersed.
Arrange into equal sized balls on your tray and allow plenty of room for spreading (no more than 6 cookies on a tray!).
Bake for about 10 minutes (mine took 15) until golden brown around the edges and quite flat. (At first, they seem to rise and look worryingly like muffins, but be patient and they will flatten. If you take them out and they look sort of runny in the middle, they're not done.)


I also baked oat and raisin cookies...

Oat and raisin cookies can be controversial (there are a lot of raisin haters out there) but I love them for their wholesomeness and the fact they seem slightly healthy! This recipe also came from the Hummingbird Bakery book and was equally successful.

Ingredients (makes 20)

270g butter/margarine
160g caster sugar
160g soft dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
380g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
110g rolled/porridge oats
220g raisins

Method

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Cream together the butter and sugars (with a whisk, in a mixer or by hand) until light and really fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well. Beat in the vanilla extract.
Sift together the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in a separate bowl, add the oats and mix well. Add to the butter mixture and beat until well mixed.
Stir in the raisins until evenly dispersed.
Arrange into equal sized balls on your tray and allow plenty of room for spreading (no more than 6 cookies on a tray!). Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes (again mine took 15) until golden brown and firm. Be careful as they burn quite easily.



And that is how you turn a rainy afternoon into something nice. Just add baking, tea and good music.

(But fingers crossed for some sun next week.)

Simple sea salt & olive oil crackers

Ok so not the most exciting of bakes, but who doesn't love crackers, breadsticks, crisps and dips? I have an extensive and lifelong love for houmous (mixing a shop bought tub with some lemon juice and tahini is how we usually roll) but I'm also of the opinion that crackers, breadsticks etc shouldn't be viewed merely as the vehicle for dips. These olive oil crackers are nice enough to eat on their own and are some of the quickest and easiest things I've ever baked - it's a case of mix, roll, cut, oven. (You can let the dough rest before baking, if you really want to.) And they're so much better than dry old Jacobs cream crackers. They're crisp little morsels of deliciousness with just one flaw - they won't last long. 

Ingredients (makes 8 big crackers or 16 - 24 smaller ones)

80g plain white flour

45g plain wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
60ml water
Herbs (optional) e.g. rosemary
extra olive oil, to brush
coarse sea salt/poppy seeds/sesame seeds/anything which takes your fancy, for topping

Method

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius. Line a baking tray with baking paper (no need to grease).

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper together in a bowl, as well as the herbs if you are using. Add the olive oil and water, and mix to form a slightly sticky dough.

Flour a work surface and lightly knead the dough. Then roll out as thin as possible without it breaking apart.

Cut into squares/triangles/blobs (a pizza wheel works really well for this bit) and place on the baking tray.

Brush each cracker with olive oil then sprinkle over your seeds/salt etc.

Bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes until lightly golden brown.

Let them cool, then eat!

Here are some I made at Christmas - I made 8 large ones and used sea salt and dried rosemary. Yum!

Next I want to try making my own salt & pepper breadsticks!

Recent deliciousness

Here are a couple of things I have managed to bake and photograph before it gets dark! (Although I'm loving the steadily lighter evenings and the fact it's March tomorrow!)

I made muffins using a Paul Hollywood (of bake-off fame) recipe and substituting the blueberries for chocolate chips. I'm on the hunt for the best basic muffin recipe - mine never turn out quite like the ones you get in coffee shops and bakeries.
This one was probably the best so far. Instead of the usual muffin method (preparing the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another, then roughly mixing together) this recipe used a cake-like method - creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs, etc. The muffins had a nice "crumb" and used easy store cupboard ingredients. My only criticism is that there was definitely nowhere near enough batter for TWELVE muffins - I only made eleven, and they were much smaller than I would've liked. Mary Berry wouldn't be impressed, Paul!

I also made some rock cakes from a lovely recipe book - the National Trust Teatime Baking Book - which I picked up for £4 from WHSmith! It's crammed with so many delicious and classic English recipes - scones, Chelsea buns, Easter biscuits, apple cake, fat rascals... One of those recipe books you read through and think, "right, sod it, I'm becoming a fatty, cake for breakfast!" Anyway these rock cakes, made with wholewheat flour and soft brown sugar, turned out truly delicious (although personally I think 2 tsp mixed spice is a bit much).

I'll end with some daffodils because at this time of year I think daffodils should be everywhere. Oh hurry up spring! Morning sunshine through kitchen windows, gingham tablecloths, fresh cut flowers on the table, poached egg on toast, sixties music on the radio...

Perfectly simple bread rolls

Mmm, bread. There's nothing nicer than the smell of warm, freshly baked bread drifting through the house. Cutting the first slice, crusty exterior, soft springy dough inside, still steaming slightly.

Add a knob of butter, let it begin to melt a little, take a bite, and you're in heaven.

Bread is made in our breadmaker every other day, but sometimes it's nice to do it by hand. My younger brother found the best basic bread roll recipe which is now our stand-by. It never fails to produce bread so tasty you can eat it plain.

A lot of people are daunted by the thought of making their own bread and imagine it to be some vastly complicated process - it's not. It's really simple and tastes so so much better than processed cardboard bread. And it's much cheaper too!


You will need

1 oz butter
8oz brown/wholemeal/granary strong bread flour
8 oz white strong bread flour
1 sachet fast action dried yeast
1 tsp brown sugar, 1 tsp salt (although it's just as nice without these, if you want to be healthy)
275ml warm water
1 beaten egg
Seeds, for topping (optional)

to do this:

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl and rub in the butter. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour the water in.
Mix with a wooden spoon until it comes to a dough, then form into a ball with your hands.
On a well floured surface, knead the dough (Youtube/google this if you aren't sure of the technique). Knead for about 6-8 minutes, then form into a ball and divide into 12 even sized pieces.
Roll these pieces into balls then place onto a greased tray. Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place (airing cupboard is good) for about 40 minutes, until they have doubled in size.
Brush the rolls with the beaten egg, then if you like, sprinkle with seeds of your choice (poppy, sesame, etc).
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.


For sweet buns, you could mix in some spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, etc), orange zest or dried fruit, when you're adding the water. Glaze the buns with marmalade when they're warm out of the oven (that's a tip stolen from Nigel Slater!).

These are some of the first photos taken with my new camera, which I'm slowly (sort of) getting to grips with.

~

Winter has finally arrived and I woke up to a really stunning frost today. I wish I lived in the countryside during weather like this - Jack Frost is a bit lost on surburban houses and cars. I'd go out tramping through the ice with camera in hand. Neverthless, cold icy mornings call for a bowl of gingerbread porridge and my warmest jumper.

I've got a boring weekend ahead full of work and portfolio preparation but am motoring on through! Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of what you're aiming for, especially when it seems so far away. This line of poetry keeps going through my head, from 'Going Places' by Lemn Sissay:

I think I'll paint roads
on my front room walls
to convince myself
that I'm going places.

Anyway, must get back to work. I hope your weekends look more exciting than mine!

Turkey pie

Yesterday I planned to make that Jamie Oliver leftover turkey pie. I think everybody else had the same idea however - not only have I seen it all over Twitter and blogs, but not one food shop I went into had puff pastry in stock!

I didn't have any creme fraiche either so decided to just roll with what I had and make it up as I went along. That's the beauty with pies though - you can throw what you like in, top it with some good pastry and it will probably taste delicious.

This is what I used:

for the filling:
1 leek
Two handfuls of chopped celery
1 medium & 1 small onion
1 fat clove of garlic
Handful of dried thyme
Knob of butter
1 tbsp olive oil
600g leftover white turkey meat
Around 750ml turkey or vegetable stock
2 heaped tbsp plain flour

for the pastry:
3 oz plain flour
7 oz self raising flour
5 oz butter/margarine
3-4 tbsp water

This is what I did:

I chopped the celery, leek and onion into rough but manageable pieces and steamed them until fairly soft and tender.

In a large deep frying pan, I heated the butter, oil, thyme and garlic together. I added the veg and stirred until everything was well coated.

Then I added the turkey meat, stock and flour. I stirred well and brought everything to the boil, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

(For the pastry, both puff pastry and shortcrust work well in this pie, readymade or homemade. If we want puff pastry we usually opt for readymade, but shortcrust is very simple to make from scratch.)

So to make the shortcrust pastry I whizzed together 3 oz plain flour, 7 oz self raising flour and 5 oz butter or margaine. When the mixture became crumb-like, I began adding cold water, a tbsp at a time until a dough formed. I then moulded it into a disc shape and left in the fridge to chill for half an hour.

I poured the pie filling into a pie dish (draining off any excess liquid). After rolling out the chilled dough to about 5-10mm thick I covered the top of the pie with it, and had enough leftover pastry for some decorative festive stars. (If we had a proper pie dish I would have made a thick pastry rim around the pie.)

I baked the pie at 190 degrees for half an hour, and when it was golden brown and any escaped filling was bubbling, served it up with some steamed purple cabbage. Yum.