Most Awesome Mince Pies

What cheese can you use to hide a horse in?


















Marscapone.  Mask-a-pony?  Geddit?

That's one of my Dad's favourite jokes for you.  The relevance will become clear later.

Sorry for the lack of dinner bloggage - we've been eating out/eating leftovers/eating fajitas from commercial kits.  Nobody would have been interested, trust me.

Now, onto the Christmassy yumminess. I'm always looking for new ways to quickly and easily gussy up some shop bought mincemeat, and this little stroke of inspiration brings some sassy gorgeousness to the humble mince pie.  Also fun to make are mini mince pie 'pasties', and super-quick if you have a miniature device to make pasties like these beauties from Lakeland:

 Lakeland Pasty Press Set

(and not honestly all that taxing if you don't - if you can fold a circle and use a fork you're pretty much sorted.)

Pear and Chocolate Mince Pies - makes approx 18 pies or 24-30 small 'pasties'

822g (large jar) of classic/basic mincemeat or equivalent amount of homemade (Lidl's is very nice, and reasonable)
1 large/2 small firm pears, conference or similar, peeled, cored and finely chopped
40g dark chocolate, finely chopped
320g plain flour
30g cornflour
125g butter, cubed
100g vegetable fat (Trex/Crisp N Dry) cubed
1 egg, beaten
cold water
pinch salt
vegetable oil to grease tins
milk or another beaten egg, to glaze
icing sugar to serve

If making pies, grease the cups of a muffin tin with oil. If making pasties, pop some greaseproof on a couple of baking trays.

To make the pastry, rub the fats into the flour, cornflour and salt until it resembles nubbly breadcrumbs.  Add the beaten egg then stir with a cold clean knife, adding the cold water 1tsp at a time until it comes together in a dough but not so much it becomes sticky.  If it's sticky, add more flour.

Wrap in clingfilm and chuck in the fridge for 15 minutes. Turn the oven on, about 200 degrees.

Mix the mincemeat with the chopped pear and chocolate.

On a floured surface, roll out some of your dough to about 3-4mm thick.  Cut circles to fit your muffin tins, if you're using a bona fide muffin tin they'll need to be about 3" diameter, bit smaller for shallower bun tins.  Pat the circles into the greased tin, then roll out the rest of your dough and cut star, Christmas tree or other natty little shapes for the lids.

Fill each cup to just below the brim with the mincemeat, then pop on the natty lid. No need to stick it down, it will seal itself with the sugar from the mincemeat. Glaze with milk or egg and bake for approx 15 minutes, until golden.  Leave to cool a little before extracting from the tin with a spoon.  You can then pop them into fancy paper cases if you so wish, or just snarf them with a cup of coffee.

If you want to make the crisp, flaky little pasties instead, just cut lots of 3" circles.  If you have a pasty press, pop the circle into the press, add a scant teaspoon of mincemeat and press to seal.  If not, add the mincemeat then fold in half, pressing all around the outside with the tines of a fork to seal in place.  Repeat till everything is used up, place on the greasproofed baking trays and glaze and bake as above.

To make these gorgeous, you can sift icing sugar all over them, as though dusted prettily in beautiful snow.  Even though we know that snow is only pretty for five minutes, until you realise you're housebound with two fractious children and no bread by great drifts of the stinking, freezing stuff.  No, you may keep snow, but the sugared pies do look quite fetching.

Very tasty served warm with thick cream, brandy butter or those fancypants liqueur creams from supermarkets, or my personal favourite - a great dollop of marscapone.

Told you it would all make sense in the end!

Sticky sausage traybake

Minimum washing up, maximum feel good factor.  Lovely for cold nights, this is the sort of food you want to eat when you've been tramping around in leaves like you're in a Boden photoshoot.  Or possibly just doing parents evening and school run, as per my afternoon...

It's roughly based on a recipe I saw in Tesco magazine, but has been fiddled with sufficiently that I'm happy to claim it for my own.  Which is a good job, given that I now cant find the magazine anyway.  I can't leave a recipe alone, I have to fiddle, I think it's actually a medical condition.  Cooking something exactly as it's described in a recipe would be my challenge task on I'm A Frazzled Mum... Actually I Think I'll Stay Here, It's Peaceful.

I'm not going to give quantities.  You're all big and ugly enough to judge how many sausages and chunks of root veg you are capable of eating.

Sticky sausage traybake

Good quality sausages
Selection of root veg, trimmed, peeled if needed, and chunked.  Suggest sweet potatoes, parsnips, carrots, peppers, white potatoes, butternut squash - whaever you have in/like/need to use up
A red onion, cut into chunky slices
Some red/orange/yellow peppers, if liked, cut into chunks
Oil

Dressing:
3tsp clear honey
6 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 tsp apple juice
1 tsp garlic puree
pinch of dried chilli flakes
tsp smoked paprika

Heat a splosh of oil in a baking tray. Add root veg, pop into the oven (190 degrees) for 25 minutes.

Remove, pop in peppers and sausages and return to the oven for 20 minutes. 

Remove, splash dressing all over, return to oven for 5-10 minutes until sticky.  Remove, stir, serve.  Put some water in the tray and leave it to soak.  The washing up can wait...

Hostess with the Roast-est

We had family here on the weekend, so I decided to make a roast on Sunday.

I'm not going to tell you how to make a roast.  It's all fairly self explanatory.  I just thought you'd like to see a picture.  The Never Knowingly Undercatered Roast.  Nom.

Treats for my sweets

It's Bonus Time.  No, not on overpriced facial soap, but on Yummy Recipes.  I know what you want.

Little step-by-step of an easy and yummy Christmas treat, a nice alternative to mince pies.  They look posh and people will think you're dead clever but they are so simples, a meerkat could make them.

Mince Pie Twists - makes 12-14.

1 pack ready rolled puff pastry
about 3/4 of a jar of mincemeat
an egg

Get your puff pastry and let it sit out of the fridge for 10 minutes or so,  Unroll, with the short side closest to you, like theeeeeeees:

Fold over and mark the halfway point, scoring a faint line once you flip the pastry back into place.

Cover the half nearest you with a layer of mincemeat, thin as you can without it looking scanty.

Incidentally, I opted for Duerrs 1881 Luxury Mincemeat with Dark Chocolate and can report that it is VERY VERY NICE.

(hopefully awaits crates of free mincemeat from grateful company...)

Anyway, when your pastry is mincemeated up, flip the top half of the pasrty over the top, line up the edges neatly, and press down all over with a clean palm to expel as much air as you can without mushing it all out of place.  Thus:

Using a sharp, slightly serated knife, cut the folded pastry into strips, top to bottom.  About a cm wide is ideal.  Like this:

Now, pop some greasproof onto baking trays.  Take a strip and, holding one end in each hand, twist three times.  Put it onto the greasproof and repeat with all the strips.

Beat the egg with a splash of cold water and brush the twists with the egg wash.  Bake in a hot (190 ish) oven for ten to twelve minutes until golden.  Leave to cool before serving, if you can...

Ch, ch, ch....

This is yummy, Spanish-style peasant fare at it most ribsticking fine.  Warming, fragrant and filling, you can make it in the slowcooker, oven on a low heat or even in a pan.  Serve with veg, rice, mash or crusty bread on a cold night for a dose of happy.

Chicken, chorizo and chickpea casserole, serves 2 big, 2 small with possibility of leftovers.  Freezes well.

1 red onion, sliced
approx 600g diced boneless chicken, or approx 8 thighs, cut up
1 chorizo ring, cut into chunky slices
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 small carton passata
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 cloves garlic, or the equivalant of garlic puree/paste/granules

Throw it all in the slowcooker.  Cook for 6-8 hours on low.  Serve!

Or... pop in an oven proof lidded casserole dish and cook ina low oven for 2-2.5 hours.

Or... saute the onion in a little oil, add the chorizo and cook a minute or so.  Add the chopped chicken and stir to coat in the by-now-fragrant oil.  Sizzle for a few minutes then add everything else and simmer for 20 minutes or so until thickened.

Very small people may struggle with the chorizo, and it's a little salty - if cooking for babies, maybe leave out the chorizo, frying it off separately and adding to yours after their portion has been served up.  For toddlers, pick the chorizo out of theirs, maybe giving them one small chunk cut into manageable pieces, just to try!

I massively favour chicken thigh fillet for this dish over breast meat - it slowcooks so much better, and is cheaper and more tender.  If you like chicken on the bone, you could substitute one chicken leg per person in the oven-cooked version.

Beef pie

I make a slowcooker and a non-slowcooker version of this hearty pie.  I'll share the slowcooker version here, as it's what I made yesterday, and the other I'll share another time. 

You can throw the carrots into the slowcooker with the beef if you like, I like them a little al dente so cook them just before putting the pies in the oven, it only takes ten minutes.

Feeds 2 adults and 2 small people.

1 pack lean casserole steak, approx 500g
3-4 sticks of celery, finely sliced
1 red onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1tsp ground black pepper
1tsp dried mixed herbs
2-3 carrots
1 beef stock cube
gravy granules, cornflour or thickening granules
1 pack ready rolled puff pastry
1 egg and splash of milk, beaten together

Put the beef, onion, celery, garlic, herbs, pepper and stock cube in the slowcooker with a mugful of boiling water.  Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

to serve:

Cut the carrots into chunks and boil for 10 minutes. Drain, reserving the water.  Stir into the beef mix.  Thicken the liquid with cornflour, thickening granules or a little gravy granules (if serving to babies, avoid using gravy, as it ramps up the salt content; if you need to add another stock cube for flavour try to use a reduced salt version).  If more gravy is needed, use the cooking water from the carrots and thicken accordingly.  Tip into a pie dish, cut a lid to fit from the rolled puff pastry, brush with the egg wash and bake in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.

Serve with peas or mixed vegetables.

You can make one big pie, or individual pies if you have a selection of dishes.  I am fortunate enough to have some charmingly 50's-retro Mason Cash pie dishes, so I get to make big pies and baby pies, thus...

Cute, no?

Creamy ham pasta

Sometimes you just want something comforting to nosh on, and today is one of those days for me.  Pasta it is!

This is creamy and cheesy and moreish, perfect for a cold and foggy autumn evening, the like of which is murking outside my door.

Winner with the snarflings, cheap and easy.  If you don't have an obliging local butcher who sells reasonably-priced ham offcuts - and if that's the case, move to the Valleys, I'll introduce you to mine - you can use bacon, or roast a small bacon or ham joint and hack it up into bitty bits.

Creamy ham pasta - serves 4, or 2 adults and 2 snarflings with worky leftovers

500g pack of pasta
some butter or spread suitable for cooking
some plain flour
some milk
about 150g strong cheddar, grated
some black pepper
4-5 spring onions, finely chopped
small tin of sweetcorn, drained
approx 300g ham offcuts,  chopped or torn into small pieces

Put the pasta on to boil.

Use the butter, flour and milk to make a bechamel sauce.  PLEASE don't make me give you quantities.  I don't weigh things, I do it all by eye, so trying to tell you how much to use is really awkward.  I would suggest doubling this basic recipe for this dish.  It will also tell you how to make the bechamel, or white, sauce, which will stand you in good stead to make 785615783664 other yummy things.

Classic bechemel sauce

When the sauce is made, stir in the cheese, pepper to taste, spring onion and sweetcorn.  Drain the pasta when it's cooked, return to the pan, add the ham and stir the sauce through until everything is cheesily coated.  You can add more grated cheese on top when you serve, if you're having a real inneedofcheese day.