Recipe for Fiona’s vegetarian cheese and potato pie: delicious hot and even better cold
“What is that wonderful smell, Conchita?” I had just taken my potato and cheese pie out of the oven when Danny arrived back from a day in Birmingham. I knew that he would have already indulged in some fast food so I took a chance this afternoon and worked on a new recipe for cheese and potato pie. Although this is supposed to be very filling, Danny might consider this a snack, as he does pizza. I wonder if he’s the only person in the world that regularly asks for chips as a side dish for pizza? “I did have a burger but give me a shout...
read moreEgg and bacon pie recipe
As a child egg and bacon pie was a traditional picnic dish and I loved it. This is not a quiche. The eggs are unbroken and the texture and flavour of the combination of short crust pastry, floury egg yolks, silky egg whites and thick cut bacon is out of this world. I had forgotten all about this pie until The Chicken Lady served it when we went the Hampton Court Flower Show two years ago. I could have guzzled the entire pie but politeness made me hold back and only accept two slices. Since then I have dreamt about it, on and off. Faced with...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Hot spring game pie
It’s the time of year when we start to clear the freezer of game given to us during the shooting season. We tend to keep our eyes peeled for cut price game. Waitrose stocks rabbit, venison, pigeon, partridge and quail. All quite expensive but often marked down to half the original price –these are brought home and secreted in the freezer until we have the perfect ingredients for this subtle game pie filling. Our favourite combination is venison, rabbit and pheasant. This pads out the pheasant and gives a tremendous range and depth of...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Organic steak and kidney pie for carnivores on a budget
We are eating far less meat these days. Eating superb meals most evenings. But sometimes we long for a real alpha carnivore meal, especially as we have ditched the Cottage Smallholder Friday night steak treat – just too expensive at the moment. This recipe is so easy, delicious and cheap. If you used non organic ingredients you could probably cut the price by at least 30% (just 62p per portion. A steal for a rich meat heavy dish.) I decided to turn some of our shin of beef (£8.00 for 2 kilos from the organic butcher) into a slow cooked...
read moreBest great budget recipes for 50% or less: Continental style warming winter pie recipe
I woke this morning with one eye puffy, bloodshot and streaming. It was agony. What had happened during the night? Danny was alarmed. “You can’t decorate with just one eye. Your painting will be asynchronous.” “What on earth does that mean?” “It’s an IT term. Meaning intermittent amongst other things.” He explained. Past caring I crawled under the duvet as he shot down to Newmarket to ask the pharmacist’s opinion. He returned with a small bottle marked Red Eye Drops. I applied the potion and snoozed in...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: comforting low fat cottage pie recipe
During a cold snap a few weeks ago I had a longing for a really good Cottage Pie. So I made a version of this dish in the slow cooker (crock pot). Adding vegetables from our garden – the cottage kitchen smelt wonderful for hours. The slow cooker is a great way of cutting the fat content of a dish as the meat doesn’t have to be browned in oil, or the onions fried. When the filling was cooked, I strained off the juices and put the bowl in the refrigerator. The fat was easily removed a couple of hours later. The dish was delicious but the...
read moreDeluxe fish pie recipe
A few months ago a local caterer and superb cook was spotted buying a Waitrose fish pie. When she was asked why she was buying one when she could easily run up a pie herself, her response was clipped. "I just couldn’t make it for the price." The story did the rounds in Newmarket and presumably Waitrose fish pie sales soared. Fish pie is a rare treat as fish is so expensive these days. But with a little patience and forethought you can enjoy a great fish pie for a fraction of the price. Every now and then I shop at Waitrose on...
read moreWe made pork pies
I’ve always wanted to have a go at making pork pies. I even bought a tiny funnel for adding the jelly a couple of years ago in the faint hope that I would have time to try over Christmas. When The Chicken Lady admitted to a similar dream I retrieved the funnel from the depths of the equipment drawer and pounded up to the top of the village with some plain flour, a large block of lard and a couple of pork hocks with trotters. My mum has given me her treasured farmer’s cookbook Farmhouse Fare (first published in 1946). So I took that...
read more
FD