Pie in the sky

The week leading up to a holiday has an element of that blissful feeling you get after you've just quit your job. I've been going through the motions with a big grin on my face knowing that in a few days time I'll be I'm a climate warm enough to apply copious amounts of sunscreen.
Tonight Kelly - Rocky's favourite aunt - is coming over for a feed, I'm going to use up the remaining veg in the fridge so it doesn't die a slow death in my absence. It's been a busy week and there is quite a lot left so I'm going to make two - that way we can have one for tonight and the other for later.
You can use any combination of vegetables for this pie - butternut squash, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, spinach, cauliflower, celery, courgettes, carrots, sprouting broccoli, aubergine or mushrooms (pan fry with some garlic first)


Going on holiday/clearing out the fridge pie

What you need
An assortment of veg. I used:
5 small heads of broccoli, cut into small florets
4 carrots
Half a handful of runner beans, chopped
2 small handfuls of green beans, chopped
1 butternut squash, cubed

Sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Butter
Gluten free flour
Rice milk

For the mash
6 big potatoes
Chives
One small tub, or 3 big tablespoons of goat's yoghurt
Rice milk

Boil potatoes until soft then set aside.

Get the steamer going and throw the veg in starting with the ones that take longest to cook. I started with the carrots, then a few minutes later added the pumpkin, then 3-5 minutes later the broccoli then the beans.

Omce the veg is all lightly steamed, separate into two baking dishes and spread out evenly.

Mustard sauce
Make a White sauce; melt about 40g butter in a medium saucepan then add a few tablespoons of flour and half a teaspoon of cumin - gently blend together over a low heat, do not brown.
When throughly combined, slowly add rice milk stirring with a whisk until it's a saucy consistency. Add the mustard and salt and pepper to taste. If it's too runny add a little more flour or reduce for a little while longer. Remove from heat.
Ladle the sauce onto the veg so it is well coated.

Drain the potatoes and mash with olive oil or butter, chives and goat's yogurt
Add salt and pepper to taste
Spread mash over the veg with a fork, roughing it up so it looks like the Himalayas.
Bake at 180-200c until it is heated through then finish it off under a scorching grill so the peaks go deliciously brown and crispy.

Now you can get started on your packing...

A good old English pie 'n' mash - Linda's way

I just realised that I haven't seen sunlight for four days. And you know what the temperature is in my home town right now? 42 degrees! Man o man - I should be frolicking in the sea and complaining about the heat, not trudging back and forth to work in the freezing wind under the cover of darkness like it's some covert operation.
Homesickness. It's a cruel thing this time of year - and when it feels like it'll never stop raining, only two words make it all A-OK...comfort food.
This is by no means gourmet (it involves frozen goods AND instant gravy) but the beauty of it is that it is fast and the key components are sitting there ready for when you need that comfort fix.

Linda's Pies with mash, peas and mushroom gravy

What you need
(Serves 2)
Linda McCartney vegetarian pies or any other vegetarian pie you can get your mitts on
greens (I used Curly kale)
2 small handfuls of frozen petit pois peas
Potatoes for mashing (approx 1 medium sized potato per person)
handful of thinly sliced chestnut mushrooms
1 finely diced celery stalk
gravy granules, mixed according to instructions (I used a vegan one from Holland and Barrett)
a few sprigs of thyme
soy milk
olive oil

The do
Preheat oven and baking tray.
Place potatoes in a big pot and cover with cold water. If you are impatient like me, cut potatoes into quarters so they cook faster. Add a little salt and boil until you can stick a skewer through without any resistance.

Get out your Linda's pies and stab a knife into the top a few times (this will prevent the pies from spewing out their insides once they get hot) and brush with some soy milk. Sprinkle liberally with sesame seeds. Throw the pies onto the hot tray and bake at about 180 degrees for about 30-45 mins or until the crust is golden and crunchy and the filling heated through.

While the potatoes and pies are cooking, get out a small saucepan and on a medium heat, fry the celery and mushrooms and thyme in a splash of oil. Add a handful of peas per person. After a few minutes, add the gravy mixture then turn down to the lowest heat setting.

When the potatoes are done, mash in the pot on the lowest heat setting with lots of good olive oil, pepper and salt. Add hot soy milk until you achieve your desired consistency. Take off the heat and cover until needed.

In another pot bring some water to the boil and throw in the chopped greens briefly, be careful not to overcook them. Drain.

Arrange it all on a warmed plate, making a crater in centre of the potato for a pea/gravy lake.

pies not pills for winter blues

Just like Chew I've been surrounded by germinators this week. The number of work casualties peaked on Monday, myself included. On Tuesday everyone clucked and ruminated about their particular germ strains and I joined in; but only because waffling on about some imaginary bug was far preferable to telling people I'd cracked the SADs.

It used to be that English people had a reputation for drinking too much hot tea and complaining about the weather. Now they call it Seasonal Affective Disorder. It goes something like this:

1) October: You begin to feel the pinch and start digging in -- the shrinking days are hard to ignore.
2) November/ December: The air has a lazy bite and there is some layering going on but you don't yet care too much. Why would you? Christmas is coming and you're drunk.
2) January: You return to work a little flabby and grey with a sharp pain where your liver should be. Your energy is depleted but there's still enough to shrug off the blocked sinuses and chilly days.
3) February: there's been no daylight before or after work for three months, you've been sniffing like a coke junkie since Christmas, you've grown a modesty flap where your stomach once was, everyone's an arsehole, your gas bill is stratospheric... but isn't the snow pretty?
4) Early March: Oh my god oh my god oh my god! Daffodils and cherry blossom!! It's light till 5.30!!! There's sunshine!!!!! IT'S OVER!!!!!!
5) Late March: False alarm. It's snowing again. Snow sucks. The greyness of the day matches the palour of all the twisted, snappy faces walking by. I am one of them. I am officially a broken woman. Oh, misery.

Just when you think it's over, bam, the sting of the tail. No wonder so many people can't get out of bed. Last year my grandad told me to install some bright lights in the house, paint a room yellow and red, and get some spring flower oils from an aromatherapist. We decided it was easier to buy a tent and head to the south of Spain. That and cook a lot of comforting food, heavy on the potatoes.

Potato and garlic cream-your-pie

This pie has been adapted into a kind of pasty pie from Tamasin Day-Lewis' book, The Art of the Tart, and it's a perfectly delicious winter warmer. I should really fess up that I actually have very little reason to complain right now, given Adam and I fly south next week; home to Melbourne for the first time in three years. That's enough to kick anyone's SADs and it also lends itself as a decorative theme for my pasty pie.

Ingredients

400g puff pastry (in two sheets)
500g of potatoes
1 brown onion
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt, black pepper
1 beaten egg and 2 egg yolks
200ml organic double cream


Preheat the oven to 200(C). Grease a pan (I used an oven-proof deep dish fry pan). I don't think Tamasin digs bought puff pastry but what are you gonna do? Lay one of the sheets down in the pan.

Cut the potatoes and onion very thin.
Mix them with the parsley, garlic, salt and pepper then layer them (alternating potato and onion) onto the pastry base, leaving enough edge to fold the base pastry over the pie lid.
Cover the potatoes with your second sheet of pastry and fold the edges of the bottom sheet over to seal the pie.

Because the top sheet of pastry doesn't need to be as big as the bottom, I cut a strip off to make some stars for a little Southern Cross, so excited am I to be seeing it for real once more next weekend.


Brush the top of your pie with the beaten egg and slice a cross in to let the steam out.
Bake the pie for 50 minutes then take it out for creaming.
Mix your cream and egg yolks together and carefully inject them into the pie via a hole in the top. Tamasin advises using a small funnel. I didn't have one and so used a jug -- with a very steady hand and pouring at a slow stream. You don't want the cream to spill onto the top, you want it to get in there. I cut a few holes to make for an even distribution.
Cook the pie for another 10 minutes and you're done.
A salad of green leaves, mint, pear, walnut and a splash of balsamic vinegar was an ideal accompaniement.