icklebabe.com, it’s in the blog

This weekend was lovely, my mum came over as she does quite alot since my dad died and we had a very lazy time.

We both share a love of cooking and often when she comes (especially if she’s feeling a bit sad) she sits herself at my kitchen table surrounded by about 20 of my well loved cook books and dives in. I call it cook book porn, as there is not much intention of actually cooking the stuff just looking at the pictures and stealing ideas.

Its strangly relaxing just to watch her, and it often leads to conversations totally unrealated to cooking.

After reading of Nigella’s love of left overs in there various forms my mum started talking about the family meals we had as kids.

It was always roast beef on a Sunday , as it was my dads favourite. And then dripping on toast with salt for tea and cold roast beef , butter beans and brown sauce on Mondays. I remember much prefering the dripping toast and the monday night concoction to the original meal!

And we always watched songs of praise (even though not very religious) with the dripping toast and I sat on my dad’s knee.  Just the sound of people singing hymns and a big slab of meat juices on toast (it was nice honest!) and I would be 10 years old again for sure!

That’s the great thing about cooking and eating as a family, its all the little memories and traditions that are unique to you and that time.

I never have cooked roast beef  (although I do make the best roast lemon chicken;)) Maybe because I could never do it the justice my mum did?Or maybe because our man of the house (big J)  prefers chicken? Who knows, the meal and its left overs are not really that important but the surroundings and the feelings that were attached are.

Here is my take on Sunday roast left overs, it looks a bit strange but its really good, and saves a few pennies….Bonus!!!

Chicken, Sausage and Stuffing Pie a la Icklebabe! -

Left over pie!

For the pastry-

40z of flour

2oz of butter

pinch of salt

cold water to mix

For Filling-

1 handful of left over roast chicken

1 packet of sage and onion paxo, (forget about being posh this is a no frills but yummy pie ;0)

3 good quality sausages (I use Lincolnshire ones, obviously)

1 handful of frozen peas

Small handful of fresh parsley (if you have it around, not essential, but nice)

300ml approx of gravy

First make the pastry by sifting the flour and salt into large mixing bowl, holding it high to give the flour a good old airing. then cut the butter into small cubes and rub into the flour until you have bread crumbs ( I often shake the bowl a bit and all the big un-rubbed in bits come to the top) When nice and crumbly add the water, a little at a time until you can form a smooth ball with your hands (roughly 4 tablespoons of water should do it)

Now rest your ball of pastry in the fridge for half an hour while you concoct the filling.

In a frying pan add a tiny bit of oil and the chicken as well as the stuffing (prepared to box instructions) and the sausage, to add the sausage meat you will need to squeze the meat from the skin, this is surprisingly fun, not sure why!

Anyhow, once its all in the pan break up the sausage meat with the stuffing and chicken and cook gently for a few mins, then add the gravy, half covered with lid and cook for about 25 mins on low. Add the frozen peas in the last 5 mins.

Then just pour into a pie dish, roll out pastry and bung in the oven for about 40 mins, I never put a bottom on this as it always goes soggy and increases the calorie count. Not keen on soggy bottoms or extra calories!

I serve with buttery swede and potato mash (because it tastes good and swede is less calories than just all mash potato;) and extra gravy.

Oh and store cupbord triffle for pud, nom, nom!

retro trifle

This lovely pie easily serves 3 kids and 2 adults, if you try it or have any other left over pie family traditions  it would be great to hear them

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.