Weekend Cooking: Pi Day

March 14 is Pi Day, as in the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. This is not to be confused with National Pie Day which is January 23, but it is a good occasion on either day to make, or at least talk about pie!

I don't know about you but when I think of pie, I think of sweet pie, but to be honest we cook far more savoury pies than we ever make sweet ones. One of our favourites is this Green Curry Chicken Pie and another is making a pie out of this Steak and Pepper casserole.

I have decided that this is the perfect opportunity to share a quote I have been saving for a while now. Last year I read The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.  Whilst this wasn't necessarily a foodie book there were several passages in this book that I wanted to share as I did enjoy the way that Towles wrote about food, and other things too, but for the purpose of this post let's concentrate on the food. I do have another quote saved somewhere. There was another passage that lovingly described eating Fettucine Mio Amore at Leonello's, an Italian restaurant. This dish isn't an option on the menu so you have to be in the know to ask for it, and another passage was about cooking this same recipe, but I don't know what I did with that quote. I might have to reborrow the book!

This week though, I am going to share a passage about why we spend time and effort cooking for the people we love. I hope you enjoy the quote too!



The character speaking here is Sally, a young woman in 1950s country America.

From a man's point of view, the one thing that's needful is that you sit at his feet and listen to what he has to say, no matter how long it takes for him to say it, or how often he's said it before. By his figuring, you have plenty of time for sitting and listening because a meal is something that makes itself. The manna, it falls from heaven, and with a snap of the fingers, the water can be turned into wine. Any woman who's gone to the trouble of baking an apple pie can tell you that's how a man sees the world.

 

To bake an apple pie, you've first got to make the dough. You've got to cut the butter into the flour, gather it with a beaten egg and a few tablespoons of ice water, let it bind overnight. The next day, you've got to peel and core the apples, cut them into wedges, and toss them with cinnamon sugar. You've got to roll out the crust and assemble the pie. Then you bake it at 425 for fifteen minutes and 350 for another forty-five. Finally, when supper's over, you carefully plate a slice and set it on the table where, in midsentence, a man will fork half of it into his mouth and swallow without chewing, so that he can get right back to saying what he was saying without the chance of being interrupted.

 

And strawberry preserves? Don't get me started on strawberry preserves!

 

As young Billy pointed out so rightly, making preserves is a time-consuming venture. Just picking the berries takes you half a day. Then you have to wash and stem the fruit. You have to sterilize the lids and jars.  Once you combine the ingredients, you have to set them on simmer and watch them like a hawk, never letting yourself stray more than a few feet from the stove to make sure they don't overcook. When they’re ready, you pour the preserves, seal the jars, and lug them into the pantry one tray at a time. Only then can you start the process of cleaning up, which is a job in itself.

 

And yes, as Duchess pointed out, the canning of preserves is a little old-fashioned, hearkening back to the era of root cellars and wagon trains. I suppose the word preserves is bygone when compared to the blunt precision of jam.

 

And as Emmett pointed out, it is, above all, unnecessary. Thanks to Mr. Smucker, at the grocer there are fifteen varieties of jam selling for nineteen cents a jar, season in and season out. In fact, jam has become so readily available, you can practically buy it at the hardware store.

 

So yes, the making of strawberry preserves is time-consuming, old-fashioned, and unnecessary.

 

Then why, you might ask, do I bother to do it?

 

I do it because it's time-consuming.

 

Whoever said that something worthwhile shouldn't take time? It took months for the Pilgrims to sail to Plymouth Rock. It took years for George Washington to win the Revolutionary War. and it took decades for the pioneers to conquer the West.

 

Time is that which God uses to separate the idle from the industrious. For time is a mountain and upon seeing its steep incline, the idle will lie down among the lilies of the field and hope that someone passes by with a pitcher of lemonade. What the worthy endeavor requires is planning, effort, attentiveness, and the willingness to clean up.

 

I do it because it's old-fashioned. 

Just because something's new doesn't mean it's better; and often enough, it means it's worse.

Saying please and thank you is plenty old-fashioned. Getting married and raising children is old-fashioned. Traditions, the very means by which we come to know who we are, are nothing if not old-fashioned.

 

I make preserves in the manner that was taught to me by my mother, God rest her soul. She made preserves in the manner that was taught to her by her mother, and Grandma made preserves in the manner that was taught to her by hers. And so on, and so forth, back through the ages all the way to Eve. Or, at least as far as Martha.

 

And I do it because it's unnecessary.

 

For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired? There is no kindness in paying a bill. There is no kindness in getting up at down to slop the pigs, or milk the cows, or gather the eggs from the henhouse. For that matter, there is no kindness in making dinner, or in cleaning the kitchen after your father heads upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.

 

There is no kindness in latching the doors and turning out the lights, or in picking up the clothes from the bathroom floor in order to put them in the hamper. There is no kindness in taking care of a household because your only sister has the good sense to get herself married and move to Pensacola.

 

Nope, I said to myself while climbing into bed and switching off the light, there is no kindness in any of that. 

 

For kindness begins where necessity ends.

 

Weekly meals

Saturday - Zucchini, Parmesan and Tomato Rissotto

Sunday -  Roast chicken, rolls and potato salad

Monday -  Warm steak salad

Tuesday - pork sausages, chips and gravy

Wednesday - Pressure cooker spaghetti bolognaise

Thursday - Mexican chicken parma, mash and beans

Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: The Last of the Apple Blossom by Mary-Lou Stephens

Recently my friend has started a new bookclub. It is something we have tried to do for a while now, but it never worked out, so this time she put a call out on Meet-Up and has bought together a group of people who share a desire to read but are otherwise a group of strangers. Well, other than the two of us who already know each other.

I was really keen to have this be a read-on-a-theme bookclub rather than nominating a specific book to read, although we may also do that on occasion. The theme for this time was Spring and I chose to read The Last of the Apple Blossom by Mary-Lou Stephens because blossoms mean spring right? It was a book that I already had on my ereader as a review copy and it also counts for Weekend Cooking - it's a triple whammy!

The story opens on 7 February 1967, a day known as Black Tuesday in Tasmania. On that day, there were horrific bushfires in and around Hobart and many people were killed, injured or made homeless. 

I count myself very lucky to have never been too close to a bushfire. The closest was a few years ago when there was a grass fire a couple of suburbs away and we were instructed to evacuate. As an Australian, every summer we dread the days when the news headlines start with stories of bushfires raging, of the volunteer fire fighters risking their own lives to try and save the homes and towns of others, of heartbreaking stories of homes lost or even worse, lives. Whilst I haven't personally been affected, I know people who know people who have lost it all. And we have all smelt the smoky air as it drifts across the country, felt the gloom descend and the pride that we feel in those people on the front line who give so much of themselves to help others.

The first few pages of this book were gripping as the author took us into the face of these horrendous fires in Hobart. The fear and the panic, the desperate need to get back to your family, and the heartbreaking moment when you realise that you have lost significant parts of your livelihood or heritage, and, even worse, members of your family. It was so well written, I could feel the tension, fear and the heat.

Our main character is Catherine Turner, a young teacher who grew up on her family's apple orchard in the Huon Valley. As the fires spread Catherine makes is charged with supervising the children who can't get back to their families due to the fires closing in. As soon as she is able, she makes the somewhat reckless, actually make that very reckless, decision to try to get home to her family's orchard. The roads are closed, and she and her friend are told not to proceed, but they do and in doing so they place themselves in the path of danger.

When she does get home, it is to scenes of utter devestation all through the valley. Fire is fickle. It can destroy great swathes of land and yet some structures will remain standing. For the Turners, they pay the ultimate price. Their main house is gone, and their young son/brother is dead. Fortunately a cottage remains for them to live in while they start to rebuild their lives. Catherine's father has always been of the opinion that the land is no place for a girl so the orchard was always going to go to Peter, despite the fact that he wanted to be a vet and Catherine wants to be an orchardist. Catherine's mother has been devestated by the loss of her son and withdraws into herself.

What follows is a history of the apple industry in Tasmania, since that fateful day and some of the key events of the late 1960's through to now through the lens of Catherine and her friends and family's lives.  Tasmania is known as the Apple Isle but the apple industry has been decimated over the last 50 years thanks to the fires, to changes in the export markets and increasing transport costs. These changes resulted in schemes from the government to pay people to rip out their trees, and families moving away to find a new life off the land. On the positive side there are the introduction of more efficient farming techniques and the introduction of organic farming methods.

Catherine's closest friend is Annie who is married to Dave Pearson. On the day of the fire, she is at home with her kids, plus young Charlie who is the son of Dave's friend Mark. Annie has five sons and a much wanted newborn baby girl. Annie grew up in an affluent family in Hobart, but she was disowned when she married Dave. Mark is living on their property with Charlie seeking an escape from his life in Melbourne, although Annie would like him to be gone. 

As Catherine gets to know the shy Charlie, she also begins to get to know Mark, but there are many impediments, not least of all the fact that he is married to the absent Lara. Catherine faces many challenges to keep her family legacy, whilst still having to deal with the ongoing trauma that is the legacy of the fires and her brother's death.

This is the author's debut novel, and it is a strong debut. I enjoyed learning about the history of the apple industry and the lives of characters. Some of storyline was a bit unlikely, but it was definitely readable.

It should come as no surprise that there were lots of mentions of food, most of which were apple recipes. I wanted to make something apple-y, but I wasn't sure what until Mae shared a poem about apple pie a couple of weeks ago. I have also been thinking that I needed to try and make a "proper pie" which sent me off on a search for recipes.  

Mae had mentioned having cheese with her apple pie, which is a new flavour combination to me and, in the end, I took that idea and twisted it a little and made a cheddar cheese flavoured pie crust, filled with apples and topped with a streusel which apparently. Apparently this style of pie (without the cheddar) is called a Dutch Apple Pie. 

I took bits and pieces and inspiration from various recipes and put them all together, but predominantly it was based on this recipe from Olive and Mango. I didn't use the nuts in the streusel because we have a nut allergy in our house (my son is allergic to tree nuts) so I looked around at various other streusel recipes until I decided to use rolled oats in my streusel.

And the verdict? I enjoyed the flavour combination, but it got mixed reviews in my house. Robert said that he would like it to be made again but with just a plain crust and my son wouldn't even try it! So overall, I would use that recipe for the apples again, but it would be a different pastry and an adapted streusel.

I am linking this post up with the Australian Women Writers Challenge, Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and Foodies Read.

Weekly Meals

Saturday - 

Sunday -  Fancy Dinner

Monday - Pork Chops, mash, mushroom sauce, broccoli

Tuesday - 

Wednesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Thursday - Fajitas

Friday - Take away

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: Bangers and Mash Pie

Some times for a Weekend Cooking post I will use this space to write about books, or flavours or whatever I bake. And then other times I use it just as a place that I save a recipe so that I can find it at a later date. Today is one of those days.

When I was growing up the go to meal in my house was sausages, mashed potato and peas. For variety, we might have had a pie, mashed potato and peas, or mutton chops with mashed potato and peas. You are likely getting the picture. There was a lot of mashed potato with peas.

My reaction to that is that I don't ever serve sausages with mashed potatoes and peas. I might have chicken sausages with mash, carrots, broccoli and gravy, or some other combination. Once, when my mum was here she cooked it for my son and was commenting on the fact that he "wolfed it down". My reaction was that is because it was exotic to him! Fortunately, I wasn't home that night!

Recently we have started making this which is really a version of curried sausages with mash on top instead of on the side, and so I am putting this recipe on the blog so that we can find it again at a later date. It's another recipe that we found in the freebie recipe magazine from the supermarket and it is also online here.

Bangers and mash pie


1 tbs cornflour

2 cups salt-reduced chicken stock

2 tbs curry powder

2 garlic cloves, crushed

600g beef sausages, cut on an angle into thirds

1 brown onion, thinly sliced

1 cup frozen peas

950g roasted garlic mash (we make our own mash)

1/2 cup shredded pizza cheese

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced. Place cornflour in a jug. Gradually add 1/4 cup stock, stirring until smooth. Add curry powder, garlic and remaining stock. Stir until combined.


Place sausage and onion in a 20 x 25cm (4cm deep) baking dish. Pour over stock mixture. Bake for 40 minutes or until sausage is golden. Scatter over peas.


Heat mash according to packet instructions. Dollop mash over sausage mixture and use back of a spoon to swirl. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for a further 10 minutes or until cheese is golden. Season with pepper and serve.

Weekly Meals

Saturday - 

Sunday - Open Cannelloni with Pork Meatballs

Monday - Bean Taquito

Tuesday - Chorizo and Onion Chilli

Wednesday - Chicken Birria Tacos

Thursday - Hamburgers

Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: Steak and Pepper with options

We have been on the search for our go to beef casserole for a while now. We have tried lots of recipes but there was either not enough flavour, or a bit watery or just okay, but I think that we have finally found the one! We have already made it a couple of times since the weather started turning cooler and we will be making it again for sure! 

The actual recipe title for this is Steak and Pepper Dumpling Pie, but we weren't enamoured by the dumplings when we made it, so since then we have had it with mashed potatoes, with a pastry lid, with soda bread and as an actual pie and all of those options have been delicious! I also think you could quite easily throw some other vegies in to change it up to. It is just a very versatile recipe.

It comes from the slow cooker/pressure cooker that I have posted about before. Nearly everything that we have made from these two cook books has been delicious, with the notable exception of a soup recipe we made early on that was ....not.

Steak and Pepper Casserole

1.2kg (2 1/2 lb) beef chuck steak

12 shallots (300g), unpeeled (we use brown onion)

2 1/2 tbspn olive oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

4 rindless bacon rashers, (250g) coarsely chopped

2 tspns cracked black pepper

1 tbsn plain (all-purpose) flour

1 cup (250ml) beef stock

2 tbspns tomato paste

400g (12 and a 1/2 ounces) butto mushrooms, halved

Cut beef into 3cm (1 1/4 inch) pieces. Peel shallots leaving root end intact.

Heat half the oil in a 6 litre (24 cup) pressure cooker. Cook beef, in batches, until browned. Remove from cooker.

Heat remaining oilin cooker. Cook garlic and bacon, stirring, until browned. Add pepper and flour. Cook, stirring, for one minute. Return beef to cooker with stock and paste. Secure lid. Bring cooker to hgh pressure. Reduce heat to stabilise pressure (unless using an electric pressure cook which will stabilise itself. Cook for 25 minutes.

Release pressure and remove lid. Add shallots and mushrooms. Secure lid. Bring cooker to high pressure. Reduce heat to stabilise pressure. Cook for 10 minutes.

If making dumpling you can add these at this point and simmer for a further 10 minutes

Weekly Menu

Saturday: Pea and ham soup
Sunday: Cream puffs
Monday: Spanish Tuna Pasta Bake

Tuesday: Steak egg and chips
Wednesday: "Fried" chicken with mash and beans

Thursday: Out for dinner
Friday: Steak and Pepper Pie

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in November

Last month when I posted about what I had baked during October, I mentioned that I hadn't been cooking as much and it's fair to say that is true for November as well. One reason is lockdown fatigue but the main reason is really because work is really kicking my butt and has been for the last couple of months. Over the last month it's got to the point that I don't even pick up my laptop after work to write or read other people's blogs or even read a book because I am  working late nearly every night and then I am so tired.

The other thing I have mentioned for the last couple of months is about how to challenge myself. On this front, I think November was a good month, because, whilst I only made a couple of things, they were both things that had several different components. Don't get me wrong, the individual components weren't particulary difficult but it does take a little bit of time to put it all together.

The first thing I made was the Chocolate Caramel Flan which I shared the recipe for a couple of weeks ago.

I loved this recipe - and I am thinking that this might be our Christmas dessert because if we add strawberries, raspberries and blueberries into the middle it would be quite festive.  We could also do something with the base to add in some spices, or make  a gingerbread flavoured cake. It's a definite possibility.

The other thing that I made was an absolutely amazing, as in a-maz-ing, lemon meringue cheesecake. This wasn't the original plan but Robert a recipe for a lemon slice type thing called Lemon Lush that included ingredients like fresh whisk and lemon pudding mix which we don't get here. So I went searching until I found this recipe at Love Life and Sugar.

Making this also gave us a reason to go and buy a blowtorch so that we could do the toasty bit on the meringue. 

I will definitely be making this one again, although I have learnt that I need to start this one early in the morning rather than in the afternoon as it was torture having to wait for it to set overnight.

Weekly dinners:

Saturday: Pork schnitzel with chips
Sunday: Grilled cheese on toast
Monday: Steak egg and chiips
Tuesday: Burgers
Wednesday: Chicken skewers, baked potato and salad
Thursday: Corn cakes, baked beans, tomato peach and ricotta salad
Friday: Fish and chips (takeaway Friday)

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: Allotment Cottage Pie

We are currently trying to do one meat free dinner every week. We are also watching Jamie Oliver's Keep Cooking and Carry On series which is on at the moment. The idea is that he gives satisfying meal recipes but also along the way gives lots of tips about how you can swap ingredients based on what is available in your pantry (or in the shops back when we were seeing shortages).  For example, in the recipe below, we swapped out dried porcini mushrooms for brown mushrooms and we used Vegemite instead of Marmite. We are, however, such bad Australians that we didn't even have any Vegemite in the cupboard (because it is horrible, horrible stuff) so we had to go and buy some just for this recipe. Oh, and we used dried lentils instead of a can. A lot of the series is actually filmed by his wife in their house rather than the usual slick production values he would have

So this week's recipe is a meat free cottage pie (link to recipe). It has been quite cool here, so a hearty cottage pie was perfect for a Monday night dinner.

We have also tried a cauliflower macaroni cheese recipe from the TV show but I don't think that we will make that one again. It was a bit underwhelming. I am earmarking meat free recipes all over the place, but it was only after a few weeks that we realise that one of the favourite recipes we make regularly (Baked Zucchini, Tomato and Parmesan Risotto) is already meat free!

One of the funny things about this recipe happened a couple of weeks after we first cooked it. My sister and her family came around last weekend and we were talking about the things that we were doing differently food wise during this period of social isolation, and we mentioned making this recipe. My son pipes up and says "oooh that's why it tasted a bit different! " He never realised that there wasn't any meat in it!

Allotment Cottage Pie

10 g dried porcini mushrooms
2 large leeks
3 carrots
500 g swede
500 g celeriac
olive oil

3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 kg potatoes
40 g unsalted butter
1 splash of semi-skimmed milk
1 onion
1 teaspoon Marmite
3 tablespoons tomato purée
1 x 400 g tin of green lentils


In a blender, cover the porcini with 600ml of boiling water.

Trim, wash and slice the leeks 2cm thick, then scrub the carrots, swede and celeriac and chop to roughly the same size.

Drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil into a large casserole pan on a medium heat, strip in the rosemary, fry for 

1 minute to crisp up, then remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Add the cumin seeds and prepped veg to the flavoured oil, season with sea salt and black pepper, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring regularly.

Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop the potatoes, cook in a pan of boiling salted water for 15 minutes, or until tender, then drain well. Mash with the butter and milk, and season to taste.

Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5.

Quarter the onion, add to the porcini in the blender along with the Marmite and tomato purée and whiz until smooth.

Pour into the veg pan and cook for 20 minutes, or until dark and caramelised, stirring regularly and scraping up any sticky bits from the bottom of the pan.

Tip the lentils (juices and all) into the veg pan, bring to the boil, then season to taste.

Spoon over the mash, place on a tray, bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly golden and bubbling at the edges, then sprinkle over the crispy rosemary.

Serve with simple steamed seasonal greens !






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Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: Green Curry Chicken Pie

In my last Weekend Cooking post, I talked about how I find looking through relevant magazines and cook books really helps in getting and keeping my head into the right place for weight loss. Each time I receive a new magazine I spend a long time reading through the recipes and the stories and then go through it again and again. Eventually I will actively choose recipes that I think I want to try. This is one that jumped out pretty quickly from the July/August issue, and just like last week's recipe it was one that I made twice within a few days because it was such a hit. Well, and also because I had all the ingredients on hand and only had to buy an onion to make dinner. In fact, when I had the discussion with the boy to determine what he might like to eat for this week, this was the only thing he asked for again which would make it three times in less than two weeks.

Confession time. Until a few weeks ago I had never made any kind of green curry from scratch. I recently made a recipe from the Symply Too Good to be True cookbooks which I might share another time but having made that I felt that I could try and make this version without too much difficulty. It is actually a pretty easy recipe although preparing the filling does take a little time. The other recipe is probably lower calories but I must confess that I have really enjoyed being able to have some pastry without feeling too guilty.

Green Curry Chicken Pie

1/2 tspn olive oil

1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges

1 tbspn green curry paste or gluten-free curry paste

2 tbspn wholemeal plain flour or gluten-free flour

2 tspn Massel Salt Reduced Chicken Style Stock Powder**

250ml (1 cup) boiling water

80ml (1/3 cup) Trident Light Coconut Milk

2 tbspn skim milk

250g skinless chicken breast fillet, cut into 2cm cubes

200g broccoli, cut into small florets

50g (2 cups) baby spinach

1 sheet 25% reduced-fat puff pastry or gluten-free puff pastry

50g egg, lightly whisked

40g (1 1/2 cups) mixed salad leaves, to serve

**I used the reduced salt chicken stock powder I had in the cupboard

Preheat oven to 210C (fan-forced). Line an oven tray with baking paper. Put a rectangular 750ml (3 cup) ovenproof dish on prepared tray.

Heat oil in a medium non-stick saucepan over a medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes or until onion begins to soften.  Add curry paste and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add flour and cook stirring, for 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and gradually whisk in combined stock powder and water until sauce is smooth. Add coconut milk and milk, and whisk to combine.

Return pan to stovetop and cook, stirring over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture thickens and comes to a simmer. Remove pan from heat, Add chicken, broccoli and spinach, and stir to combine. Spoon mixture into the prepared dish.

Lay pasty sheet on a clean surface. Cut 4 x 1 cm thick strips of pastry from the perimeter of the sheet. Brush rim of dish with a little egg and press pastry strips around the rim. Brush with egg. Top with remaining pastry, rolling out slightly, if needed, to fit. Trim edges. Brush with a little egg. Cut a few small slits in the top of the pastry. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

Serve pie with salad leave.

Serves 2

There is also a suggestion that you could make a fish pie by replacing the chicken with boneless fish fillets and the green curry past with red curry paste. The teenage boy would not be a huge fan but it might be something I might try in future.

I will say that the pie actually looks huge so it isn't like it isn't a generous serving for two.

The first time I made this I stuffed up the pastry so I had some leftovers. Just because I could I made a really quick free-form apple pie using fresh apple. By free-form I mean that thing was messy, messy, messy but it tasted good. This was a hit with the boy, and during the course of the week he made himself another couple of pies. I did laugh though because, when I made it, it was some apple and cinnamon shoved in the middle of some pastry with the uneven sized edges folded in. His pie was beautifully presented with plaited pastry and looked very professional.  Then the second time he made a pie this is what he presented. I would point out that this was all for him though!!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.