Can I boi you a poi?

Firstly, please accept my apologies for the lack of photos to accompany this recipe.  I made it to feed a very hungry husband who had been out climbing Pen Y Fan in the snow and he ate it too fast for photo ops.

Pies are fabby warming winter food, and readymade pastry makes them quick and easy.  I don't have the patience to stand and fold and roll my own puff pastry whilst a hungry, wailing toddler attempts to scale my trouser leg, so I make no apologise for my addiction to Jus Rol.  Jus don't buy the new low fat puff one.  It's not 30% less fat, it's 90% less nice. 


The post title is inspired by a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, but knows who she is.  In our young, free, single, drunken days she was once famously chatted up in a 2am chip shop queue by an Australian backpacker who led with the classy "Noice tits luv.  Can I boi you a poi?".  It makes me chuckle every time I make a pie and I am happy to share the mirth.

So, a yummy, creamy, warming chicken pie then?  Of course.

Chicken, mushroom and bacon pie

400g chicken, breast or thigh fillet, chopped
1 small punnet mushrooms, chopped
6 thick rashers smoked bacon, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
approx 2 dessertspoons softened butter or spread
approx 2 dessertspoons plain flour
1 pint chicken stock
1/4 pint milk
tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp chopped garlic (approx 4 cloves)
1/2 tsp crushed black pepper
1 pack ready rolled puff pastry
Olive oil

In a large pan, heat a splash of oil and fry off the onions and chopped bacon.  Set aside in a dish.  Repeat and brown the chicken and mushrooms together, cookig for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.  Pop in the dish with the onions.

Return the pan to the heat, melt your butter and add your flour, cooking for a minute or two until the paste starts to turn golden and smells nutty.  Start adding the liquid a bit at a time - milk first, until it's all gone, then start with the stock.  Stir briskly between each addition as the sauce thickens and cooks - keep stirring and lumps will disappear, I promise.  When all the liquid is added, throw in the garlic, pepper and mustard seeds and simmer for about five minutes until thick.  Add in the contents of your bowl of chicken and whatnot, stir together then tip into an ovenproof dish and top with the pastry, cut to size.  Brush with a little milk or beaten egg to glaze and bake for 15-18 minutes in a hot (200, 180 fan) oven until gold and puffed and delicious.  Serve with vegetables of your pleasing.



You'll be pleased to know that the chat up line didn't work, incidentally.  I mean, would you?

Lessons in chicken

I make this goat's cheese and pesto stuffed chicken quite a lot.  Older snarfling loves it, she's been a bit of a goat's cheese fiend since she was tiny.  I've decided to present it as something of a step-by-step guide, so you can make it too.  I'm nice like that.

Goat's Cheese and Pesto Chicken

Serves 4, easy to halve quantities for 2

4 chicken breasts, freedom food or free range, pleaseandthankyou.
4 tsp red pesto
pack of soft goat's cheese
8 rashers of good quality smoked bacon

Take your chicken breast and flip it over, moving the 'butterfly' bit out of the way.

Take a sharp knife and cut a deep slash (but NOT all the way through!) where the butterfly bit meets the main chicken breast.  So -

Open it out to make a pocket -

Pop in a teaspoonful of the pesto (tip - decant your pesto into a little dish before using in this recipe, then if your spoon touches the raw chicken, you aren't transferring bacteria back into the jar to breed.  Always thinking of you, folks.)

Then wodge in a teaspoonful of the goat's cheese -

Close up your pocket as best you can and flip your butterfly bit back over the top, thus -

Wrap two rashers of bacon around the chicken, using the widest medallion bit over the opening of the pocket to cover it up -

Now wrap your chicken breast firmly in foil, and repeat!

Bake them in a 180 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  If you're making the roasted baby potatoes and carrots that I served with this, microwave your veg for 5 minutes whilst you heat a little oil in a roasting pan, pop the veg in for ten minutes, then put the chicken in and roast all together for another 20-25 minutes (25 if you have especially large or thick chicken breasts).

All done-

You can crisp the bacon under a hot grill for a few minutes if you like, but I had small snarfling screaming at me, so dispensed with that step!

Ready to eat -

Convertadinner!

It's one of the banes of my life that my husband won't eat tuna pasta.  Tuna pasta is bloody lovely, plus it's cheap, filling and full of protein and carbs and general good stuff.

Bloody husband!

I amdetermined to feed it to the snarflings though, so tonight's dinner effort was something of a convertadinner - tuna pasta for them, pasta bake with creamy tomato sauce and bacon for us.  This is how I did it!

Make 1 quantity basic tomato sauce, and cook a pack of pasta.

When the sauce is thick and bubbling, turn off the heat and add 1/2 a tub of creme fraiche.  

Hive off 4 serving spoons of the cooked pasta into a bowl.  Add 1 tin of drained tuna chunks* and 1/2 a tin of drained chickpeas.  Put the rest in a tub in the fridge for future adventures - I'm making dhal tomorrow so my lonely chickpeas will be happy to be squished into that.  Add enough of the creamy tomatoey sauce to coat.  Pop into bowls, sprinkle with grated cheese, serve to ravening snarflings.

Now, onto the grownup dinner.

Snip 6 rashers of good quality smoked bacon into strips, and fry in a little olive oil until crisp.  Refresh the pasta with some boiling water from the kettle, shake dry, and tip into an oven dish.  Mix in the bacon and the rest of the creamy sauce.  Top with grated cheese and bake for 15 minutes in a hot oven until the cheese is golden.  This is more than enough for two, you will have leftovers, which can be frozen or portioned up for lunch the following day.  I send the husbeast off to work with leftovers in a tupperware box, because that's just the kind of amazing, nurturing wife I am.

* - Tuna tip - I like a bargain but not at the expense of the environment. Sainsbury's basics tuna chunks in brine, also their regular own brand tinned tuna, is fished by pole and line instead of trawling, which is less harmful to the environment and other marine life, is dolphin friendly, and it's only 45p a tin!