Meal planning for eventualities of the sniffling kind

It seemed highly likely that as son & heir currently has a bit of an upper respiratory infection (I hesitate to label it a cold and cough - but that's basically what's going on), the rest of us are liable to go down with it.

Hubby is already showing signs of wilting and I've felt generally a bit low, so I thought it wise to make this week's meal plan one that concentrates on the simple and the easy.  It's not a good thing to have to knuckle down to cooking a dish that requires several tricky processes, when you'd really rather just go back to bed.  All that results in, is our reaching for the nearest takeaway menu - and considering home cooked is so much better for us, it's a bit self-defeating.

However, I didn't intend for this week to be quite as dominated by bacon as it has turned out to be!

Both hubby and I seem to be going through a serious bacon fancy and the large part of our ideas for this week turned out to be centred around the lovely stuff.  I suppose there's no real harm in it, as I can't see us going off bacon any time soon!

Here's what's on the list for this week :

Tues : shop-bought frozen Pizza

Weds : vegetable curry and rice

Thurs : Carbonara and garlic bread

Fri : Bacon & sausage pilaff

Sat : Bacon & onion pie with baked beans and peas

Sun : Roast of some denomination (probably a bacon joint!)

Mon : Chicken Kiev and savoury rice.

Shop bought frozen pizza is our usual "get out of jail free" card.  Son & heir loves it, hubby approves and I get fed, so it'll do.  Hubby is our pizza chef, so I don't even have to venture into the kitchen in order to get fed.  Can't argue with that!

Something like this - except with more veggies!

Wednesday's vegetable curry began life as Cornish Pasties.  I know!  Talented shapeshifting going on there!  No, I'm afraid I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer, which negated the Cornish Pasties as I was going to make them early on in the day.  You see, son & heir is back involved in his Rock Choir practice which means a late pickup from school, so it would have fitted perfectly.

I realised that I had rather a lot of leftover vegetables in the fridge and initially considered some kind of soup for dinner.  That was, until I pondered on currying the soup - whereupon I thought I may as well just go for a vegetable curry and be done with it.  I know that son & heir isn't hugely struck on vegetable curry as a concept (no meat, you see), so I figure if I boil a couple of eggs, I can include a hard boiled egg in son & heir's.  That should cheer him up, as he loves his eggs.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday's Carbonara is the first of a rush on bacon dishes and I'm really looking forward to this.  Rather than use spaghetti, I thought (to ring the changes) I'd try some of the Mafalda Corta pasta instead.  Its ruffles should grab the sauce beautifully and it is just so easy to make, plus it has the benefit of being one of those enigmatic processes that shouldn't work, but does - and beautifully.

The Bacon & Sausage Pilaff is actually an adaptation of a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe which you can find here.  I'm going to take it a little bit further and add a few more ingredients to the mix (mushrooms & peas, for instance) along with the bacon, sausage and black pudding.  I'll also turn the sausages into little sausage meatballs, as I think they'll suit the Pilaff structure more elegantly than rough-cut sausages.

Photo c/o Jeff's Great British Eats

Saturday's Bacon & Onion Pie is a James Martin recipe which you can find here and which I expect I'll follow pretty much to the letter.  It's a recipe which involves bacon, fried onions, mashed potato and cheese - what could go wrong?  He recommends serving it with baked beans or peas - well both works for me!  I might even throw in a tin of carrots, just for fun.  Oh, for those who don't realise what I'm going on about here, my hubby is a man who considers both peas and carrots should never appear on the same plate as baked beans.  I consider them to be perfect bedfellows - so bring it on!

Hubby has promised us a roast for Sunday, although what we're going to be roasting is a matter of conjecture at the moment.  It will all depend on what Spring Fields Butchers has that looks nice, I suspect!  We haven't had a true roast dinner for quite some time, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Another property from a similar road in Oxshott - I'd have lived behind the tree on the right.  lol

Monday's Chicken Kiev is a) a step back in time for me and b) something of a misnomer.  To begin with, when I lived in Oxshott in Surrey, I had a small granny annexe by the side of a huge Victorian country house.  My little flat consisted of two rooms, a bathroom and share of the utility room where there was a sink.  My two rooms I divided into living & bed, plus cooking & storage.

Cooking was something of a challenge, as the sink was away down the corridor and I had a two-ring Belling oven and a microwave.  I wasn't in to cook a great deal anyway, as I would leave to walk the dogs at 6.30 a.m., then go to the stables to feed, turn out into the field and muck out my horse & donkey, returning home to shower and change for work at 9.30am.  Then I'd leave work at around 6pm, collect the dogs and go to the stables to bring in the horse & donkey, feed them and settle them down for bed - maybe even cramming in a ride, in the summer months.  Lastly, I'd walk the dogs (in the pitch black, through the woods!), getting home at around 9pm-10pm when cooking was the last thing on my mind.  The slow cooker came into its own during the winter months!

Me, with my No.1 Highland Pony, Kellie of Whitefield

However, one of my favourite meals was a Chicken Kiev with savoury rice.  The Kiev would go into the oven while the savoury rice (or "slavering mice" as it came to be known) would be twirling in the microwave.  They'd both co-incide in time to sit down and eat before I fell asleep.  Perfect.  Eating was all about fuel, in those days.

Slavering Mice - mmmmn! lol

Now the misnomer comes in, because the Kiev isn't a Kiev at all.  It's a Chicken Cordon Bleu after-a-fashion.  For all that it's sold as a "kiev", it is in fact, chicken (although that's arguable - probably more "chicken bits, stuck together with carbohydrate glue") filled with cream cheese and ham, cooked in breadcrumbs.

Either way, it will be a super-simple meal of disgustingly processed food that is full of everything that's bad for us.  Yes, I know I could make the same thing from chicken breasts and it would be much nicer, more trustworthy and better for us.  However, it won't be done with the minimum of effort.  Well, you have to kick over the traces from time to time, haven't you?

Hopefully, a normal, healthy menu plan will return next week.  *wink*

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Harissa Lamb in flatbreads with tzatziki

I shall apologise (I'm very sorry!) first off, for posting another mince recipe so soon.  Hopefully you'll forgive me when you realise just how good this combination is - and at least it's lamb mince this time.

I do try to ring the changes with the recipes that I schedule in for the week - and blog - but some are just too good to wait.

I'm not sure where I got the idea for this dish from, to be honest.  I think I can remember seeing something on t.v. where hummus was used as a base within a pitta bread which then had other bits heaped on top, but for the life of me I can't remember which programme.  Like a lot of life, these days, it is just a blur.  I'm lucky if I can remember my own name, some days!

Flatbreads have been popular on the t.v. just recently, having been featured in Celebrity MasterChef at least twice - and it's there that I got the idea to use flatbreads instead of pitta bread.  Before I committed myself to the flatbread idea (and, I hasten to add, I had no intention of making them - not this time, anyway - so apologies if you've come here looking for a flatbread recipe) I checked via the online shopper interface whether my local Asda sold them - and it turned out that it does!

Now I like pitta bread, but I do find them to be hard work some days.  Very often, even after heating, they refuse to open properly and you wind up with your filling more "on" them than "in" them.  Plus, they seem to go very leathery and/or hard when they cool down, which is okay if you're wanting to exercise your jaw muscles - but I can do that by talking.  ~innocent look~

Flatbreads, however, have no pocket.  It's a simple matter of filling and folding them in half - much the same as a sandwich.  They are also delightfully light and fluffy - and we've discovered that Asda do three "flavours".  For this lamb dish, I used the tomato & onion version, but they also do a plain version and our favourite (which we didn't discover until after this dish, or I'd have used them here) a "coronation" (aka curried) version.

Apart from the North African flavours (which are just fabulous), the very best thing about this dish is the simplicity with which it comes together.  There really is just the one cooking process to do - the preparation of the mince - and the rest is just assembly.

For the mince, I used the little pot of Harissa paste that had been sent to me by Sainsbury's as part of their promotion of the Speciality Ingredients Range.  I've used Harissa in the past and not been terribly impressed by it - it seemed a bit pale pink in flavour, whereas I was expecting some deep, big flavours.  Well, it would appear that Harissa has come a long way since I first played with it - as the Sainsbury's Speciality Ingredients Harissa contains rose petals, red peppers, smoked paprika, cumin, coriander and caraway and is wonderfully flavoured with all the big, rich, deep combinations that I had given up on.  It is true that I did use the entire pot of paste - but then as prices for the entire range top out at £2.99, even if the little pot cost the full £2.99 it was worth it as the only other thing I used was an onion and the mince itself.

I put together a home made Tzatziki - cucumber in Greek Yoghurt, with fresh chopped mint and some seasoning - and the combination was perfect for dipping one corner of your flatbread into.  Some marinated beetroot, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese added a lovely zing to the dish.  Spicy mince, warm soft flatbread, creamy cool yoghurt and zingy beetroot - I'm beginning to sound like Greg Wallace!

Son and heir loved these flatbreads and has requested a repeat.  Hubby's one criticism, which is more a personal taste observation than a criticism, was that he would have preferred the mince to have been more "saucy" and less dry.  I loved them just the way they were and feel that to have made the mince mixture wetter would have made it problematical to keep it in the flatbread.  As it is, I spread the flatbread with hummus, then added a handful of rocket leaves and piled on the spicy mince.  The hummus did a great job of hanging onto the mince, as did the rocket.  I can imagine if the mince were more fluid, it would wind up dripping down your arm - which has its attractions, it's true!

HARISSA LAMB IN FLATBREADS, WITH TZATZIKI   (makes 6 individual flatbreads)

Ingredients :

500g lamb mince
1 onion, cut into quarters and sliced finely
1 pot (90g) Harissa paste
6 flatbreads
200g hummus 
50g rocket leaves
8cm (approx) cucumber
3-4 tbsp Greek yoghurt
2-3 sprigs fresh mint
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.  Heat a large frying pan until very hot, then add the lamb mince and dry fry it until all the water has evaporated, the fat rendered out and the meat is beginning to caramelise.  Drain the fat into a container and set the drained meat to one side.

2.  Place a tablespoonful of the fat back into the pan and add the onion.  Cook on a medium heat, stirring often, until the onion is softened and a light golden brown colour.

3.  Replace the meat back into the pan and bring up to temperature, then mix in the contents of the jar of Harissa.  Reduce the heat and continue to cook for some 5 or 6 minutes, or until the flavours have combined sufficiently.  Check for seasoning.

4.  Sprinkle the flatbreads with a little water and heat in a hot oven for 3-4 minutes.

5.  Taking a flatbread, spread it liberally with hummus, then add a handful of rocket leaves to one half of the spread side.  Pile a generous spoonful of mince onto the rocket leaves and fold the flatbread over, like a sandwich.

Serve with tzatziki and a small salad including some Feta cheese.

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Rich Beef Cottage Pie - food of the gods!

Now I'm sure that if you've been following my blog for longer than the last ten minutes, you will know that my very favourite thing is a Cottage Pie or a Shepherd's Pie.  Doesn't matter which - both are as good as one another.

When I was in my early twenties, living away from home but close enough to visit every Friday and have dinner at my parents' house, my Mum would often make a Cottage Pie for me to take home.  So there I'd be, in the very early days, riding home on my motorbike with a casserole dish full of deliciousness in my topbox.  In later years, I'd be driving home in the car, with two lurcher dogs guarding the casserole dish.

Convert this into a view made with mash & peas ...

Even earlier than that, I can remember eating Cottage Pie at the dining table, "en famille", and probably driving my parents crazy as I made landscapes out of my dinner.  The crispy topped mashed potato would be ploughed fields, the mince would be muddy fallow fields, the peas would be grass with occasional dots of white cauliflower for sheep and orange carrot tractors.  Very creative.

So began my love affair with mashed potato topped pies.  I'll never lose my love for them, as no matter how many disappear down my throat, there's always room for one more.

Now circumstances have dictated that hubby has become the Cottage Pie chef in our house - largely because of my penchant for using it as medicine.  So, whenever I'm under the weather, he'll make a Cottage or Shepherd's Pie and it seems to have the effect of injecting some life back into me.  However, I had a yearning to make a Cottage Pie in the style of those I used to make when son & heir was just a wee lad (instead of the hulking great lump of boy he is now) and hubby was a big-shot I.T. man (which he still is, except not so many people notice, these days).  A Cottage Pie with rich, deep, dark beefy flavours.  One with *sharp intake of breath* baked beans in the mix.  Oh don't look like that - it's just not a Cottage Pie without baked beans in there somewhere!

Just look at the colour of that gravy - rich!

There are about as many recipes for Cottage Pie as there are fleas on a hedgehog - in fact, I'd wager that there are probably more recipes than fleas - and that's saying something.  I think everyone has their own special way of concocting the mince mixture, but the mash is probably very similar everywhere (unless you're one of these adventurous types who put mashed parsnip, or sweet potato on top).  This recipe isn't the definitive recipe - this is just "my" recipe.

Liberally sprinkled with cheese and full of delicious promise!

I think what makes my recipe different from all the rest are the small touches - not all of which will be agreed with by the purists amongst us.  Do I care?  *pshaw!*  Do I heck as like (which means "no", for those who don't speak Jenny).

For me, to begin with, it is important to get that touch of caramelisation on the mince, as this is what helps the flavour along.  Drain the fat from the mince (or the mince from the fat, whichever works for you!) and reserve the meat.  The fat can either go in your dog's dinner (for which he will be forever grateful), into a container for roast potatoes at a later date (mmmmn!) or if your conscience demands - in the bin.  It's that touch of caramelisation that makes the difference between a flavourless steak and a steak with gorgeous rich beefy flavours.  It's the same with mince - just in smaller bits.

Oh and yes, I know it's bad form to be using cop-out gravy granules (this is where the purists begin to raise their eyebrows and mutter about reducing stock) but the Bisto Best Rich Roasted granules are so tasty that it is an easy way to get a little more flavour in, whilst thickening your gravy.  So shoot me.  If you're passionately opposed to them, use flour, or gravy browning - whatever you want by way of thickening.  You are looking for a quite thick, dry, consistency - one that won't allow lots of gravy to flood across the mash topping as it cooks - and gravy granules does that whilst adding another oodle of flavour.  We're not cooking for The Ivy here, people - this is for the family - and yes, I appreciate that gravy granules are processed and all things processed are baaaad.  *sigh*  But it's just one dessertspoonful!

These photographs are making my mouth water ..

All the finely chopped vegetables have their role to play in flavour development, too.  As the mixture cooks and the individual veggies melt into the gravy, so the flavour deepens.  The leftovers (which are mine, all mine - get your hands off!) are just fantastic the next day.  One day I'll be brave enough to make the pie a day before it will be required - but I'm too scared I might eat it in secret, sitting on the kitchen floor, in the dark, at 2 a.m., to have tried that approach yet!

My last recommendation is to use one of the Knorr "Rich Beef" Stock Pots.  (There go the purists again!).  They do two types of beef stock pot - so make sure you get the "Rich Beef" one, as it makes all the difference to the flavour.  I used to swear blind that nothing had beef flavour like Oxo cubes - until I tried one of these Rich Beef Stock Pots.  They have just swung my preference, for two reasons - they aren't so salty as Oxo cubes and also have a great richly roasted flavour.  So there you are, of course it won't matter if you use home made beef stock, or Mulligatawny soup (although that might be a bit odd) - if it works for you, I'm not going to complain!  

RICH BEEF COTTAGE PIE     (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :


500g minced beef
1 onion, chopped finely
1 stick celery, de-stringed and chopped finely
1 carrot, diced finely
1 small garlic clove, crushed
2-3 chestnut mushrooms, chopped finely
200g tin of Heinz Baked Beans
a "Rich Beef" Knorr Stock Pot
200ml hot water
a tsp of Bovril
a dessertspoonful of tomato puree
a dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup
2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
a dessertspoonful of Bisto Best Beef gravy granules (optional)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
4-5 medium Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and each cut into 4 or 6 chunks
100ml warm milk
a heavy-handed knob of butter (as large as your conscience will allow)
a generous handful of grated mature cheddar cheese.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

2.  Heat a deep frying pan on a high heat and add the mince.  Fry until all the water has evaporated, the fat is rendering out and the meat is beginning to caramelise.  This can take up to 10 minutes - so be patient!  Drain the the fat away and reserve the meat.

3.  Leaving a little of the fat in the pan, reduce the heat and add the onions, celery and carrots.  Fry until the onion is softened and a light golden colour and the vegetables have softened.  Add the mushrooms and garlic and continue to fry for 2 minutes or so.

4.  Add the meat back into the pan and mix well.

5.  Add in the baked beans, the contents of the stock pot, water, Bovril, tomato puree, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and stir well.  On a medium heat, allow the contents of the pan time in which to heat through and simmer for another 15 minutes or so, to enable all the flavours to amalgamate.

6.  Now this next bit is optional - but if your gravy is looking a little bit thin at this stage, I use a small amount of Bisto's Best Beef Gravy Granules to thicken it. 

7.  Taste for seasoning and add some sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, as required.

8.  Leave the meat mixture to simmer slowly on a low heat and boil a pan of salted water for your potatoes.

9.  Once the potatoes are tender (and fall off a knife easily), drain them and return them to the pan.  Add the warm milk, butter and seasoning and mash like crazy until you are sure all the lumps have disappeared.

10.  Decant the meat mixture into a deep casserole dish and add blobs of mashed potato on top.  Lightly, with a fork, blend the edges of each blob until you have a seamless mashed potato topping with a fluffed up surface.

11.  Scatter the grated cheese on top and place into the oven to bake for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and crunchy looking.

Serve.

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Back in the comfort zone - this week's menu plan

For all that I'm always very glad to get into salad weather, I will admit to finding it difficult to ring sufficient changes where salad is concerned.  We do tend to get pretty darned bored with it.  I've tried warm salads, fruity salads, green salads, mayonnaise salads (such as pasta or potato), but it seems as though when the weather starts to take a turn for the autumnal I breathe a sigh of relief as I start thinking casserole and stew.

Autumn always has been my favourite time of year.  When I still had the horses, I loved those mornings when the sun came up across the dew-laden field and the horses, still bare-backed and rugless but just starting to grow their thick winter coat, would leave trails as they brushed through the grass on their way in to breakfast.  The spiders webs would be jewelled with dew and everything smelled freshly washed.  Such a relief from the baked and parched dustiness of the mid-summer field.

Just this morning, son & heir commented on a spider's web that we passed on the way to school.  On any other morning you would never notice it, but the sun had caught its threads and turned them silver and there it was, in all its complex and fragile beauty.

Sounds a bit like me, "complex and fragile" - especially in the morning.

So Autumn is ordinarily a time of bounty.  A time when the plants and trees are putting out their best seeds and fruits.  However, I wonder how much damage has been done by the weird summer we had, as I've already noticed a Blue Tit checking out our seed feeder on several occasions.  I'd have thought that, ordinarily, there'd be plenty of natural feed for the likes of him - but perhaps not, if he's already looking to augment his diet.  Perhaps a hint of food shortages to come for all of us!

Anyway, for this week's menus, I've taken a large step away from the salads and into more robust - but hopefully still fairly healthy (on the whole) - foods.  Here's what's on the list :

Tues : Smoked Haddock Chowder and crusty rolls

Weds : Chipotle meatballs in tomato sauce, with pasta

Thurs : Steak pie with broccoli, parsnips & carrots

Fri : Pulled pork rolls with BBQ sauce and curly fries

Sat : Minced Beef Wellington with savoy cabbage, turnip and carrots

Sun : Slow cooker beef cobbler, with roast parsnips, broad beans, savoy cabbage and celeriac

Mon : Sausage casserole, with mashed potato and peas.

I doubt that there's anything on that list that would stop the culinary world in its tracks (is there ever?), but its all food that we'll enjoy eating and I have no doubts about.

Tonight's Smoked Haddock Chowder is a family favourite that we haven't had since the winter.  I've refined the recipe a little over the years, to make it suitable for hubby's dislike of potato (I used Canellini beans instead) and dislike of thin soups (I make sure it is considerably thicker than most Chowders appear to be, from their pictures).  The soup is now a perfect candidate for a main course soup, as by the time you've eaten an entire bowlful you definitely are warm from the inside out - and certainly aren't hungry any more!

Tomorrow's Chipotle meatballs and pasta are an opportunity to use some of the Sainsbury's Speciality Ingredients' chipotle paste.  Son & heir loves his meatballs in tomato sauce and we haven't had those for ages, so he'll be happy and I'll get to try out the chipotle paste.  Seems like a done deal, to me!

Me, by the time I get home  :)

Thursday's Steak Pie will be a shop-bought pie, as there is every possibility that we'll be taking a drive to Southampton to visit the Apple Store there (think computers, not fruit).  We'll need something that doesn't involve lots of cooking processes after that sort of drive.  It's not a difficult drive, but I certainly know I've done it by the end of it!

I'm looking forward to Friday's Pulled pork rolls, as I've seen so many recipes go by for pulled pork and they have - to a man - made my mouth water.  I just need to find a roll that is robust enough to cope with the pork without dissolving.  I'll be serving them with some of Mic's Chilli's El Loco BBQ sauce and have a yen for some apple sauce, too.  Of course there'll be curly fries served alongside, it just wouldn't be right without them!

Om nom nom!  No wonder we like it!

There's another blast from the past scheduled for Saturday - Jamie Oliver's Minced Beef Wellington.  I've made this on a couple of occasions and it always went down very well with the family throng.  It's a good hearty meal that contains lots of "hidden" veggies - not to mention the veggies that I'll be serving alongside - and is a good excuse for some more gravy made with Knorr's extra beefy stock pots.

There's another excuse for rich beefy gravy on Sunday, too!  Yay!  I remembered a recipe that I'd seen in Clarissa Dickson-Wright's "Potty" (a cook book of one-pot dishes) for a Beef Cobbler made with ale and walnuts.  I'll be cooking the beef in the slow cooker, only adding the cobbler scones for the last couple of hours - so it should be absolutely gorgeous.  We'll have roast parsnips, savoy cabbage and celeriac with it - and some broad beans if I think it needs them.  The cobbler will have lovely slow cooked carrots in it, so it's very definitely a good autumnal warmer.

Next one up on the schedule is a good old Sausage casserole, which is just perfect for soaking up all the little bits of leftover vegetables and clearing your fridge out.  Being on Monday, if we're a bit light on bits of leftover vegetables, a quick stop at the supermarket will soon furnish us with a few to bolster the numbers.  I don't think that there is a definitive "Sausage Casserole" recipe, it seems to me to be a "brown the sausages, cook onion, add in chunks of whatever you like, add gravy, cook in oven until tender" job.  Add to the plate some lovely fluffy white mashed potato and a few peas and the job's done.  Perfect!

I should open a "British Comfort Food" restaurant.  I bet it'd do well as there has to be more than just me out there who loves this type of food!

Now, a couple of little points of interest for you - or I hope they'll be points of interest for you!  Firstly, Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger has just passed its second birthday!  It happened on the 22nd August, while I was busy thinking about other things.  So happy belated birthday, blog - here's to many more!

Secondly, another bit of good news is that I looked on the Alldishes rankings this morning, to see whether things had improved since getting back in the blogging saddle after my illness - and we're up to number 10!  Yay!  So thank you all for sticking with me while I was being extremely slow in updating - here's to next year, when hopefully I won't be struck down by some nasty August virus!

Fish Pie - as close to "economical" as I could get

I love fish pie.  Well, it's got mashed potato on it so I'm bound to love it, right?  However, it also involves fish - which up until I got pregnant with son & heir, was very much a no-no for me.  However, even back in the day when I was a little nipper a fish pie could restore me from bed-ridden, tonsillitis-wracked misery, to something resembling health.

Being my second-rated (after a Cottage Pie) port of call for comfort food, I've stuck with it over the years.  Through many sub-standard supermarket versions when I was either without a kitchen or without the time and inclination to cook it and with occasional successes under the guise of a ready-made "Fisherman's Pie".

Now when I announced to the assembled family (hubby and son & heir, that is) that this was the "first Fish Pie I have ever made" - I truly believed that.  (Not taking into account several Russian Fish Pies that have come and gone).  However their reaction negated my belief and led me to the conclusion that fish pies I have made in the past have been so awful that I must have written them from my memory.  Odd.  I have given the grey matter a good old wring out and just can't remember ever making it before - but then with age comes a certain amount of loss of memory.  *cough*

Fish .. sauce .. spoon .. eat.  No!  Must add mashed potato and bake!

One thing I know for sure, is that I have wanted to make a fish pie for absolutely ages, but the price of the fish has been restrictive to the point where we just couldn't afford the investment in the ingredients.  Not much has changed where that is concerned (the price of fish, that is), but our local Asda have brought out two types of "Fish Pie Mix" - the frozen version (cod, smoked haddock and salmon) at £3.00 for 300g and the fresh version (haddock, smoked haddock and salmon) at £3.20 for 325g.  Now one of those packs on their own is not sufficient for the three of us and I had looked wistfully at them from time to time, just to see if the quantity increased at all.

However, thanks to the Tom Yum Soup requiring some fishy input and my buying a "cheap as chips" small bag of teensy prawns, it occurred to me that if I included a 200g bag of said teensy prawns for £1.30, it would bring the quantity up to acceptable and the price for the fish to (almost) an affordable level.

With a final flourish of grated cheddar, it is ready for the oven

So I invested in a bag of both, some Maris Piper potatoes and crossed my fingers.

Of course, I had to uncross them in order to peel the spuds - but they were crossed in my mind, you understand.  The fish pieces were minimal, but even so I cut them in half just to make sure they went a bit further.  Don't ask me how it does it, but somehow whilst in the oven, fish pieces have the capability of all migrating across to one side of the casserole dish - so rendering one poor person with mashed potato and sauce.  I hoped that by cutting them in half, it might slow down such shenanigans.  I gather that hubby's portion was somewhat light in fish and heavy in prawns, so it didn't quite work - but I tried to lay them down evenly!  I can't be held responsible for any migratory habits once in the oven.  Oh, now here's a thought - maybe it's the salmon who round up the other fish and chivvy them across during their migration!  We all know how salmon like to migrate during their lives.  It's possible - anything is possible.  I shall have to put up small mushroom weirs to keep them on their own side in future.

~ comes back to reality ~

The washing up is a good way of coming back to reality ..

So - I knew this fish pie was going to be tasty as soon as I got the sauce right.  This was the occasion I was talking about in the Creamy Chicken & Courgettes post - when I used some of Essential Cuisine's fish stock powder to full effect.  I had the sauce pretty much made, but it was just lacking in something to key it to the fish that was to be added later when I remembered the fish stock powder.  Essential Cuisine's stock powders aren't hugely salty and I knew that if I added a flat teaspoonful to the sauce it would mix in and disappear, but leave behind it a subtle hint of shellfish that would be perfect.  The cayenne pepper provided a lovely background warmth without being at all intrusive and the nutmeg and parsley were just plain old traditional.

Because the fish pieces were so small, I didn't worry about cooking the fish before adding it to the casserole dish.  I suspect we'd have wound up with tiny pieces of rubber, had I have done so.   I did take the precaution of squeezing out as much water as I could, by pressing them (along with the prawns) between two pieces of kitchen paper before adding them to the dish.  I have had several failures with defrosted frozen fish in the past, when they have let gallons of water (well, it looked like gallons) out into my beautifully crafted sauce - so leaving me with dishwater.

Slowly submerging under a sea of sauce - but deliciously so!

There was slightly too much sauce in the casserole dish - I'll have to watch that in future, as I'd have preferred it not to have encroached quite so far upon the surface.  It rather spoiled the effect of the baked cheese.  It wouldn't have gone to waste, as it was all I could do not to eat it by the spoonful instead of putting it in the casserole dish.

Hubby felt that there was rather too much mashed potato on board his portion, so I've resolved to buy some individual sized dishes and use those in future.  That way son & heir and I can have a good whack of potato, whilst hubby's can be rather more restrained.  A good handful of grated cheddar on top finished it off beautifully.

The veggies - carrots (cooking), green beans (colander) and peas, all queueing politely

The finished pie served the three of us very generously - and there was even a spoonful or two left for lunch the next day.  Hubby thinks I'm mad to go scraping the bowl around, getting all the baked on bits of mashed potato and cheese out.  However, for me, they're the best bits and it really hurts to see them still stuck to the casserole dish, but the casserole dish put into the water to soak!  I'm sure I was born into the wrong era.  I should have been around during rationing.  I'd probably have enjoyed eating false marmalade and Lord Woolton Pie.

FISH PIE  (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 pint plus 100ml of milk
2 small onions, one halved, one diced super-finely
6 cloves
2 bay leaves
50g and 25g butter
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp plain flour
3 tbsp double cream (optional)
one third of a tsp of cayenne pepper
one third of a tsp of nutmeg
a pinch of sea salt
a flat tsp of fish stock powder (or half a fish stock cube, crumbled)
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
300g mixed fish (I used a combination of smoked haddock, cod and salmon)
200g cooked peeled prawns
3-4 large Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
a handful of grated strong cheddar cheese.

Method :

1.  Pour the pint of milk into a small saucepan and place over a low heat to warm through.  Add the halved onion, into which you have pushed the six cloves (three on each half) and the two bay leaves.  Once the milk is steaming - but long before it boils - set aside to steep.

2.  In a small saucepan, melt one third of the 50g of butter and add the finely diced onion.  Sweat the onion - without browning at all - until it is softened and transparent.  Then add some freshly ground black pepper and the remaining two thirds of the 50g of butter to melt.

3.  Stir in the flour and continue to cook over a low heat for 2-3 minutes, without browning.  Then begin adding the steeped milk, little by little, stirring all the time, until you have a thick and lump free sauce.

4.  Add the cayenne pepper, nutmeg, cream, fish stock powder, sea salt and parsley and stir through.  Taste for seasoning and add a little more if necessary.  Remove from the heat and reserve to cool slightly.

5.  Place the potato chunks into a pan of boiling salted water and cook until tender.

6.  In the meantime, cut the fish into bite sized chunks and, if it was frozen or just plain old wet, then dry on some kitchen paper pressing down to remove as much water as possible.  Place the fish into the bottom of a casserole dish.

6.  Do the same with the prawns, removing all traces of moisture.  Add to the fish and stir to combine.

7.  Add the cooled sauce and gently stir the fish through.  Make sure the fish is evenly distributed across the bottom of the casserole dish, so that everyone gets an equal amount.

8.  Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them and return them to the saucepan along with the 25g of butter and the 100ml of milk (warmed slightly - I use the microwave) plus a pinch of sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper.  Mash the potatoes thoroughly, making sure that all lumps are gone.

9.  Place spoonfuls of the mashed potato onto the top of the fish mixture and gently level the top, making sure not to press too hard and squash the fish.

10.  Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese across the top and place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/gas 4, for 35-45 minutes or until the top is golden and the sauce has begun to bubble at the sides.

Serve.

Printable version
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Purely for medicinal reasons

The “purely for medicinal reasons” excuse is often wheeled out in our house.  However, not in regard to the tot of whisky or a glass of wine – but with regard to food.

I’ve spoken in the past, about how Shepherd’s Pie and Cottage Pie are magical things that can resurrect the erstwhile flagging Jenny into pink-cheeked health.  There has been more than one occasion when that has happened.

It doesn’t take much examination before you turn up the long-held belief that chicken soup will heal almost as much as a cup of tea will.

After all, just think how many times you’ve reached for the kettle in times of stress.  Okay, maybe you’re a coffee person, but the premise is the same – a hot drink will provide comfort and soothe a troubled soul.

I remember when (on far too many occasions) I’ve come round from a spell of being unconscious in hospital (after anaesthesia or on one spectacular occasion when I went to sleep at home and woke up 24 hours later in hospital) and have heard those words “would you like a cup of tea?”  Would I ever, yes please!

So it ever has been, for the cup of tea.  How many cups have been supped by wartime refugees who have been bombed out of their homes and supplied with a cup of comfort by the WRVS?  Or between women, sat at their kitchen tables and chewing the cud over their inconsiderate men or troublesome teenagers.

But food.  When did we start associating food with situations?  I suppose since the first Jewish mama insisted that her chicken soup would cure all known ills – or even before.  Think about the “soul food” of the Southern United States that originated with the black Africans.  Food that reminded them of where they came from originally, that took them back home for those few moments as they savoured those flavours.  True comfort food.

Summer in the U.K. (when we get a summer, that is) means being able to spend few weeks eating fresh foods in salads.  Lighter bites that take care of hunger but leave you able to enjoy a mild evening spent taking a walk, or just enjoying the sunset, with strawberries or ice cream for dessert.  Rarely does a requirement for comfort food arise during these times – unless something unusual happens.  (Although I would argue that strawberries & cream is the ultimate summer comfort food!).

Take this terrible summer that we’re currently being blighted with.  We should be enjoying barbecues with accompanying salads – not chicken casseroles, warming meat pies and carbohydrate-heavy cheese and potato dishes!

For some weeks now, I’ve been hankering after a dish that I normally only make in the depths of winter – it’s a variation on a Cottage Pie, involving a savoury minced beef base with a potato top, where the potato is cubed and tossed in a combination of mayonnaise and tomato ketchup, then baked.  I know, it sounds disgusting, but it is one of my guilty pleasures.  However, not in summer, for goodness’ sake!

But there you have it – in a nutshell.  It’s comfort food.  Food that makes you feel warm and protected from the heaving rain that’s going on just the other side of that wall.

I suppose it should be no surprise that soup kitchens serve soup.  Yes, it’s cheap to produce and feeds a lot of people – but it is the epitome of comfort food.  It isn’t hard to guess how welcome a bowl of steaming, savoury soup would be, if you’re homeless and out on the street in the weather we’ve been having.

I learned, just recently, about the Sikh Community Kitchen, or Langar.  At these community kitchens, food is served daily to all comers no matter what background or status, for free.  Interestingly, they will only serve vegetarian dishes, so that there should be no difficulty over dietary restrictions and all diners can eat as equals.

I suppose that food is the one thing that connects us all – whoever we are and whatever strata of life we come from.   No matter who you are, we all have to eat.

We are creatures of habit.  We like to endow things around us, including the types of food and rituals surrounding food, with an aura of normalcy so as to feel secure in our world.  A comment from Hubby got me thinking along these lines just recently.  We were contemplating what to do about dinner when returning from a trip to visit my Dad in a hospital out of town.  (He’s back home now and is fine, by the way).  We decided to stop in at our local Chinese Takeaway on the way home and pick up some of their spectacularly good Chow Mein.  Hubby commented that he was concerned that he was starting to associate going to this particular takeaway with stress – largely because whenever we have a stressful day that results in no time to cook, this is our takeaway of choice.  For me, it was quite the opposite, as the truly sublime Chow Mein that we get from there means a) I don’t have to cook and b) the problem is sorted – and in the best way possible.  I found it interesting how we both approached the situation from completely different corners.

I was also touched to hear that my dear old Dad, who following his surgery, had requested some Rhubarb & Apple Crumble for his dessert – in honour of this food blog.  So even here, food reaches out and provides comfort not only in its literal form, but in its emotional connections too.

Is it any wonder, then, that dieting can be such a disturbing – and potentially difficult – thing for us to do?  Our whole lives are invisibly and intangibly intertwined around food and eating, whether we like it or not!

Still, it’s probably best that I don’t get into the whole can of worms that is dieting.  Not today, anyway – I’ve just eaten a humungous Chow Mein.

This post was previously published on my Bournemouth Echo blog "Jenny's Week".