Readers of yesterday's blog will be assuming today is Hampton Pie day. Well, it isn't. Plans have been revised yet again. Instead I'm waiting for the puff pastry to thaw out before I fill it with the minced beef, tomato & potato filling for the Beef Plate Pie.
I always associate this meal with my brother. After my mother died, for a while he got into the habit of turning up on a Sunday morning, staying until after dinner. He never bothered to warn us.
In those days, money was tight in the Fox's den. We would do the food shopping mid-week, so by Sunday the purse was just about empty, a matter of pence rather than pounds. It never occurred to my brother to suggest taking us out for a meal. And in those days not many food shops were open to buy any extra ingredients, even if we had the money to buy any. So it was that Beef Plate Pie came to the fore.
The thing about Beef Plate Pie is that for 2 people it only requires 6oz of meat. Sometimes I would have 8oz of meat in, ready for a meatball curry for example, so it was easy to change the meal for the day into a Beef Plate Pie & for us all to have a satisfying quantity.
In the end we had to give my brother a broad hint to at least warn us so we could get extra food in. How did we do this? One Sunday we just happened to be going to have a tuna & macaroni bake. Now my brother was never very keen on fish, fish fingers & tinned sardines being the only exceptions, nor did he appreciate pasta. I knew this, but for once I decided to continue with my planned meal. He never again just turned up, expecting a meal, without letting us know well in advance. He learnt his lesson & I never made a tuna & pasta meal for him again.
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