Hi folks,
I said I’d tell you about my culinary disasters at the weekend but first, little daily pleasures. I was very uplifted this morning when I spotted our first daffodil in the garden, thought to myself “Spring is here”, only to be watching a snow blizzard a couple of hours later - the first snow this year and I thought that maybe we weren’t going to see any. Now, don’t get me wrong , like all 5-year-olds I get really excited when I see the first snow fall, it’s just that I felt very sorry for my first proud and hopeful daffodil. Still, daffodils are hardy plants and I’m sure my first will be fine .... Wondering if I should cover it up to protect it?
Now back to my weekend. I decided I’d make some veggie cottage pies, a veggie stew and some Shroppie pies; these are in pastry. We call them after our local canal here in Shropshire where we had a narrowboat for ten years. I made the mix for these on Friday morning; it’s the same mix for the three recipes and honestly you’d never guess. On Saturday morning I decided that I would start with the Shroppie pies, thinking that these would be out of the way first as there is little to it. I confess that I bought the pastry; my mother would turn in her grave if she knew that at this time of my life I’m buying it; making it was her speciality!
Well, I spent the whole morning making several attempts to get the pastry bases for the pies blind cooked to come out the right shape and every attempt failed. Have a look at the photos and you’ll see what I mean.
In desperation I messaged my friend Charlie, who gave me a pastry tutorial some months ago, asking her if she’d come and help me to try the next batch. She duly arrived with Buster, her Jack Russell (a play date for Dolly, our Jane Russell who tends to ignore him after the initial sniffing ceremony but he doesn’t mind).
As she walked through the door Charlie said, “Have you made your pastry?” I gave her that look that says “Life’s too short, Charlie”, and replied “I bought it.” Because Charlie is ever so polite she made no comment.
Now, for those of you that know a thing or two about pastry you will be aware of the need to use shortcrust pastry for the base of a pie. I’d travelled to three different supermarkets to get the best deal and using this pastry Charlie demonstrated again how to get this part of the process right. All looked pukka as we put them into the oven - a dozen, in their individual containers - and we put the kettle on for a cuppa while we waited for the magic to happen. Well, horror of horrors, folks, when we took them out of the oven they were once again a disaster. I managed to save two. We were flummoxed but the penny dropped. We both came to the conclusion that the short pastry I had purchased, in every case behaved like flaky pastry. Now all you pastry chefs out there will know that you can’t use flaky pastry for the base of a pie; it just does not work.
At this juncture, I changed the habit of a lifetime, a habit I’m not proud of. I looked at Charlie and said “I’m going to make the pastry, Charlie. I’ll get a pen and paper and you can tell me how to make it.”
I set to it on Sunday morning and well, folks, the results speak for themselves. The pies are near perfect. I need more practice though at this very easy and rewarding task of making my own pastry.
However, I’m now wondering if anyone else has had this problem with shop-bought pastry. Do let me know. Finally, have a look at my photos and you can see the end results. Shroppie Pies, cottage pies and a stew for our supper Sunday night, all from one basic recipe and so, in theory, amazingly time-consuming. In my next post I’ll give you the recipe for this magic mix.
