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A window on my life

The other week I decided the time had come to restock our freezer with yummy home-made pies. Here's how I did it:

Day 1, Saturday: Martin bought 1.5 kg stewing beef;
Day 2, Sunday: Scheduled rest day;
Day 3: Diced the beef;
Day 4: In the morning, browned the beef; at lunchtime, fried onions, added stock, meat and flavourings and left it to simmer whilst I went back to bed; in the afternoon, sliced the mushrooms. In the evening, Martin fried the mushrooms added them to the stew and thickened and seasoned it. This was *way* too much for one day!;
Day 5: Too tired to do anything;
Day 6: Still too tired - put stew in freezer;
Day 7-9: Tired days;
Day 10, Monday: Made two double-crust pies worth of flaky pastry with white flour and butter. Removed pie filling and also some mutton fat saved from a previous roast from the freezer;
Day 11: Made two double-crust pies worth of short pastry with half and half mutton fat and butter and half and half white and wholemeal flour;
Day 12: Made one nine-inch and six single-serve pies at lunchtime and baked them in the afternoon. We had guests for dinner and they enjoyed the big pie (which I had made with the yummier but less healthy flaky pastry), while the rest went into the freezer;
Day 13: Made another nine-inch pie with the remaining flaky pastry and seven more small ones with the remaining short pastry. After baking, cut four of the pies in half (half a pie is plenty for me for lunch) and froze everything, spreading them out so they didn't stick together;
Day 14: Stacked the now frozen pies tidily in the freezer; ate the remaining pie filling on toast for lunch.

Half of me is amazed at what I can achieve if I divide the task into appropriately small chunks; the other half is amazed at just how long it all took! Unfortunately, I've realised I can only cope with two activities per day, so, on top of my regular morning activity the pie making has been all I've been able to do for two weeks. Should you also want to make these very yummy pies, here are the recipes I used. The pastry is from Alison Holst's "Meals Without Meat" and the filling is based on a recipe by Brigid Kennedy heard on Radio New Zealand National on 28 April 2007.

Recipe (with apologies to the vegetarians amongst you):

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Roll out pastry, grease tins. Line the tins with pastry, fill with beef mixture (don't overfill - a one-serving pie only needs a generous half-cup of filling). Moisten the edge of the pastry, cover with a second circle of pastry and pinch the edges together firmly. Prick with a fork then bake at 220 degrees (200 if you use fanbake) approx 30 min until pastry is golden.

Filling:

* 1.5 kg lean stewing beef
* 3 x 2T vegetable oil
* 3 onions, sliced
* 3 cloves garlic, chopped
* 4 and a half cups red wine
* 12 bay leaves
* 4 and a half cups beef stock
* 4-5 cups mushrooms, chopped chunkily (about 450g)
* 1/3 cup cornflour
* 1/3 cup cold water

In a saucepan, brown the beef in batches in first measure of oil. Set aside. Add the onion and the garlic to the saucepan with second measure of oil and fry until opaque. Return the beef to the saucepan, pour in two-thirds of the wine and add the bay leaves. Boil to reduce the liquid by one-third (about 30 min.), then add the stock and remaining wine. Simmer for one hour. Pan-fry the mushrooms for 15 minutes in third measure of oil, then add to the beef mixture. Mix the cornflour and water and add to stew to thicken.

Quick Flaky Pastry for one double-crust nine-inch pie or 6-7 individual pies:

* 1 1/4 cup flour
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 125g cold fat (butter, lard etc. - whatever you have available, whatever flavour you like)
* approx. 1/2 cup milk soured with 1 tsp vinegar or 3-4 tsp lemon juice

Mix flour, baking powder and fat in the food processor until it is uniform and looks like bread crumbs. Gradually add soured milk until it starts to clump a little. Work it by hand into a ball and store in the fridge until needed. The pastry will have visible pieces of fat in it.

Short Pastry for one double-crust nine-inch pie or 6-7 individual pies:

* 2 cups flour (I like the flavour of 1:1 white and wholemeal flour)
* 120g cold fat (butter, lard etc. - whatever you have available, whatever flavour you like)
* approx. 1/2 cup water soured with 1 tsp vinegar or 3-4 tsp lemon juice

Mix flour, baking powder and fat in the food processor until it is uniform and looks like bread crumbs. Gradually add liquid until it starts to clump a little. Work it by hand into a ball and store in the fridge until needed.

Heather
July 2007