Pie making

I’m once more pie-making, once more with minced beef as the basis of the filling.

I can’t help remembering an old employer of mine who loved pies, positively fantasised about them. I could never quite understand his enthusiasm. Then I realised his wife never baked pies so he rarely had them. They had become a special treat, whereas we had pastry fairly often, both savoury & sweet. These days I don’t bother making puddings much but still savoury pies appear quite frequently on our menu.

I’m struck, too, that you can see I was attracted by one of those bogof (buy one get one free) promotions for minced beef. As I’m using up from the freezer at the moment, I’ve got the challenge of varying what to do with all the mined beef I didn’t use at the time of buying it. Still this is the last bag for a while.

The next thing to use up is puff pastry – a pie perhaps, or vol-au-vents. The next meat is chicken thighs – sounds like the potential for an interesting filling. However, whatever I do will wait a while as we will be going shopping, getting in fresh ingredients. It’s just nice to have an idea of what I might do. 

A Smiley pie - an old favorite.