Inner child

There’s no disputing this. Today’s dinner is a pie. It has shortcrust pastry, top & bottom. It’s filled with minced beef (of course) & a few vegetables.

It feeds the inner Fox as well as the stomach. The toothy smile brings out the kid in us. It’s time that we, in our sixties, are reminded of the inner child.

Come this evening the Fox will make some creamed potatoes to have with my glazed carrots & beef gravy. All in all, a good way to end a year.

Which reminds me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

to all my readers

Definitions

We’re back to the minced beef. Once more I’m trying to think of different ways of presenting the same minced beef. Today’s offering is Pan Pie.

The Fox tells me I should rename it Pan Pudding as the pastry is made of suet pastry. It is put on top of the stewed minced beef like a giant dumpling. It is then steamed for about 20 minutes. As a result the pastry is more like a soft dumpling or the soft spongy pastry of a suet pudding. However, to me, a pudding ought to have the suet pastry enclosing the cooked meat, not just on the top.

Definitions. Definitions.

We have a friend who insists a pie has to have both a top & a bottom. I’m quite happy to have a pie with just pastry on top. (Just on the bottom makes a flan or a quiche.) However, I insist the filling & the pastry have to be cooked together to constitute a pie. It isn’t enough to put a separately baked bit of pastry on top of a separately cooked stew & call it a pie.

The Fox also insists the suet pastry ought to be the soft spongy stuff of a steamed pudding whereas I’m quite happy to use suet pastry as a baked suet crust or as a basis for a roly poly.

There’s nowt so confusing as words & definitions.

Mists & reflections

We went out yesterday. After a quick trip to Mprrisons supermarket – we were running out of basics e.g. milk, eggs, butter, sugar – we decided to go on to the golf club.

As we went along the promenade we watched the people strolling along, obviously making the most of the dry day to work off some of their Christmas excess & get a bit of fresh air in the process.

Halfway along the view changed. Suddenly you were aware of the layer of mist rising from the water in the Bay. The view became transformed into a sort of Japanese artwork, with just the tops of the Lakeland fells emerging from the banks of whiteness. The water in the Bay sat there so still & limpid, barely moving.

At the club we were joined by our cruising friends. We were all relieved to have a change of scene. They too had had a quiet Christmas, though theirs was interspersed with phone calls with various children & grandchildren & the odd gurgle from great-grandchildren.

We left the club an hour and a half or so later. By then night had fallen. Across the Bay the twinkling lights of Grange-over-Sands could be seen so presumably the mist had lifted. As we turned a bend of the prom, we were entranced by the sight of the lights of Morecambe being reflected in the oh so still water in the Bay. Magnificent.