Birthday Pasty

 So as you've probably gathered I like baking and making cakes. It also turns out that eating sweet stuff is a past-time loved by mainly females. So as it was a male colleagues birthday at work I decided to take the initiative ;) and make a savoury Birthday thing to put candles in.....

I chose Mini Pasties!! (I say mini, but still the size of your hand)
I found the recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Every Day. The pastry is really delicious and so quick and easy to make. I use the same recipe for my sausage rolls.

For the rough puff pastry
250g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
550g plain flour
A good pinch of salt
240-300ml iced water

METHOD (2 variations..)

How to make leftover stew pasties (use my Spiced Beef Stew Recipe here)

1. For the filling, drain off any excess juices from the stew so that the meat and veg are just lightly coated in gravy. Take any large chunks of meat or veg and chop them up roughly before stirring back together. Taste the stew and make sure it's seasoned to your liking. Leave to cool completely.
2. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to about 3mm thick. Using a plate or a cake tin as a template, cut out four 20cm circles; you may have to gather up the trimmings and re-roll them to get your fourth circle.
3. Spoon the stew on to one half of each circle. Brush the pastry edges with water, fold the other half of the pastry over the filling to form a half-moon shape and crimp well to seal.
4. Place the pasties on a lightly oiled baking sheet and brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake in an oven preheated to 190°C/Gas Mark 5 for about 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Eat warm or cold.

Squash and Lentil Pasties

Main Ingredients:

• Brown lentils
• Butternut squash
• Shortcrust pastry
• Onions, carrots and celery
• Mustard, white wine and balsamic vinegar

First one onion, one carrot and one celery stick were fried in olive oil, then simmered in white wine. Then the (rather unappetizing-looking) brown tinned lentils were added along with bay, thyme and half a pint of vegetable stock and simmered for 10 mins. I then hacked away at the squash until we had some nice cube-shaped chunks, which were chucked in and cooked for a further 20 minutes.

The resulting mixture was rather watery, so I set about it with a potato masher to help the vegetables soak up some of the juices. Finally, two teaspoons of English mustard and the same of Balsamic vinegar were added to give it a kick.

Anyway they flew off the plate, the meat ones especially!!

Seasons Are changin!

As it's Sunday, we headed up to the Farmer's market in Blackheath to get some produce for the coming week...

Is it me or do work lunch boxes seem to be the hardest thing to keep exciting and interesting? Not only do they have to be portable (un-leakable) usually have to be cold or pre-cooked (no ovens at work) but also tasty and satisfying. And on top of all that variety!

Now I know we're in the height of summer and what I'm about to say will seem strange... but soup seems the way forward! Obviously this will change once I'm all souped up, but having a bowl of soup is healthy, hot and also will keep you fuller for longer compared to a salad - 'don't you know' - well that's what I heard them say on this TV programme. There were lots of army men eating soup and others the same ingredients but not pureed... anyho the soldiers that had the soup stayed fuller for longer.

Oh I've just thought of another reason why soup is goood in the summer - it's like having a cuppa tea. A hot cuppa tea will cool you down quicker than a glass of ice cold water.  FACT.
Again heard this on another tv programme and made a lot of sense but don't ask me to explain... something to do with your bodies inside freaking out at the hot tea and then cooling you down quicker...??

That was a bit of a tangent wasn't it......

So where was I? Oh yeah 'Soup kitchen' and work lunch boxes.
My work colleague, Kim, and I are gonna start making lunches for each other. So she'll sort out Mon & Tues and I'll sort out Wed & Thurs etc etc... We're gonna do soups, which works out brilliantly! Cause when you make soup, it usually ends up being a 'Vat' of soup & you end up eating the same soup every day for a WEEK!? So by us combining our efforts, not only do keep the variety, try recipes you've never made but it's also rather fun and exciting! 'You never know what ya gonna get' :D

Also I might get myself this cool yet informative t-towel. It tells you what veg is in season every month, which in turns tells you what veg you can get lots off for not a lot of money - Great for soup making! It's designed by Stuart Gardiner (he's done some really cool stuff!) and I think they might sell them round the corner from my office in SCP. Ooo might pop in on Monday :D

Another modern way to stay in touch with your seasonal veg would be to sign up with 'Eat the seasons'. They send you an email every couple weeks to tell you what's in season and has links to recipes and things. very useful as it's free and again very 'informative' (God I'm sounding like my old teacher Mrs Cox!? She was my Home Ec teacher - named after apples - Ha!? co figure)

Bought some delicious Kent Cherries... majority were eaten by the time I got home ;o)

Plan to make Spinach & lentil soup for Wed and Thurs next week. I ended up getting the spinach from the supermarket, as all the spinach in the market had wilted a bit in the sun.
Let's hope Kim likes it :O)

Mx

The Healthy Veggie Cake!!

So I had a go of one of my 'healthy veggie' cakes today! :D
With great results, Pete even loved it !!

It was a chocolate, pistachio & courgette cake.
At only 300 cals a slice, that's definately worth two slices!! :D

Look at all the courgette that went in...

And the ground pistachios ...

The finish article....
And do you know what ..... it was delicious especially with a couple of blobs of vanilla ice cream :D Well you can't have it being to healthy now....