A floating palace of om-nommy-ness!

With as many food allergies as me you get used to cooking from scratch quite quickly, although this was something I was used to it meant a little adjusting from those who cook for me on occassion.  As onion is now my biggest enemy it's more important than ever as pretty much every sauce or every filling has a base of onion or at the least includes onion powder.

So I came up with a few pie recipes that my family love that go down pretty well with "the regular folks" too!

I've shared my cheesy chicken and bacon pie but I make a Sunday Pie too which I think you might like;

Pastry: a suet pastry is fabulous for winter. For this I use 100g of original suet (vegetarians can use the veggie one but there are too many veggies I can't eat so it's a big dangerous for me) and 200g of plain flour with a sprinkling of salt.  Just sift the flour over the suet, salt lightly, and stir in enough water to bind it all just by a couple of tablespoons at a time at the most so you don't over do it.  Bring into a ball shape, cover and pop in the fridge (or if like me your fridge is full, I put it on the roof of the boat now it's chilly outside!) for about half an hour. That gives you long enough to make the fillings.

Stuffing:  I use roughly a large table spoon of fresh finely chopped sage, 1 free range farm egg (they have so much more egg-osity) and two and a half slices of good bread blitzed down into breadcrumbs.  Season lightly with salt and pepper and just mix it all up together. Leave to one side for now.

Chicken: I often make this using left over roast chicken but if you're cooking from raw today then chop into fairly big chunks, season, seal, and cook through in a frying pan with a little oil for around ten minutes on a medium heat.

Making: Leave the chicken on a really low heat at the end and then get your pastry out.  Grease a 6" tin with sides at least 1" deep and then roll out three quarters of your pastry.  Wind it around your rolling pin to transfer to your tin and push into the corners leaving the excess pastry hanging over the edge.

Brickwork chicken: Start building up layers of the chicken and the stuffing, using the stuffing as grout like you're building a patio in layers in there! Squidge it in to all the gaps!  Keep building til you run out of either space or filling. Then roll out the remainder of your pastry. 
Lightly milk the edges of the base with a pastry brush and drop the lid on. Trim with scissors leaving no more than an inch over the edge of the tin then just roll it in towards the centre so you've folded and sealed all the goodness in.  Lightly brush the top with more milk.

Cook: Put your pie in the centre of an oven preheated to gas 7 (fairly hot) and cook for 40 minutes til your pastry is golden and crispy.

Fend everyone off and get in there with your fork!!  If there's any left over, this is fantastic eaten cold too...

I'll be sharing my super special mince pie cheat recipe soon so keep an eye out!

It's pie weather

There are many of us working towards running our homes more economically in these tough times and part of that means using up ingrediants in the fridge and having what my mum used to call "iffits" (iffits in the fridge you can have it, iffits not you can't).

With a basic suet pie crust you can transform the most basic things into something hearty, warming and incredibly filling! With 200g of suet and 200g lightly sifted flour combined with a little water and thrown back in the fridge for ten minutes before rolling the pastry is beyond easy and I've never known it come out as anything other than delicious. Keep it around 5mm thick and it's crispy and a little stodgy all at once.

Tonights filling was leftover cooked chicken (equivalent of two large chicken breasts) which I chopped into bite sized pieces and added to a couple of rashers of smoked bacon after frying off in their own fat for about two minutes. I let it heat through for five minutes on a moderate heat and then added about a teaspoon of dried sage, a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard, a couple of handfuls of grated cheddar cheese and a small pot of double cream. Slightly decadent but all leftovers in our fridge. Let the filling come to the bubble and simmer for a moment while you roll out the pastry and grease and line a 6" metal pie tin. Pile up the filling and add a lid. Get fancy and add leaves and a rolled pastry rose if you like and milk wash the lot.
Cook at gas 7 for 35 mins, checking after 25 mins to see if you need to lower your heat a little for the last little while.

This kind of pie always going down well with my floaty family but we change it around... sometimes I pop a raw egg in a small well in the filling before I pop the lid on and it's like a hidden treasure lurking under the lid when you cut in to dish it up!

Are you pie fans??!