Stars in your Eyes

Pie is one of my favourite savoury dishes. In my experience even the poorest restaurants that can't even make tomato soup from a can taste nice somehow can make a half-decent pie. I was certainly in need of a pie to fortify me on the penultimate Saturday of November as I had managed just five hours sleep the night before following my re-election as secretary of the local cricket club at its Annual General Meeting.

The month of December was soon going to be on me so I elected to make a pie that I often have at this time of year. The recipe is derived from a dish sometimes known as a Starry Vegetable Pie. However I have my own way of preparing the vegetables that improves on the original recipe.

I first took three large Sweet Potatoes, half a large Swede and four Carrots and peeled them as well as topping and tailing the Carrots and the Sweet Potatoes. I then cut these vegetables into small centimetre squared cubes, which in the case of the Swede was no mean feat considering it was tough and wiry and as anyone who has prepared Swede will tell you this makes it exceptionally difficult to peel and cut.

I steamed the vegetables for around twenty minutes until they were soft enough for a fork to go through them without too much trouble. I then left the vegetables in a sieve and covered the sieve with a pan lid to keep the vegetables warm.

In the meantime I put two diced red onions and four finely sliced cloves of garlic into pan with half a pint of vegetable stock and half a pint of red wine, seventy five grams of puy lentils and seventy five grams of red lentils and a quarter of a pint of boiling water and simmered the contents of the pan fiercely for around half an hour. So as to ensure the pan did not boil dry I topped it up periodically with cold water and wine. After half an hour when the lentils had softened I added some sprigs of fresh Rosemary and let the contents of the pan stew slowly on the hob until there was enough liquid to cover the other ingredients but not too much that the rest of the contents of the pie when cooked would be drowned.

While the lentil mixture stewed on the hob I made the puff pastry that the filling of the pie was to be contained inside. The way to make the pastry is to first use the same technique as that used to make shortcrust pastry, i.e. by taking ten ounces of plain flour and five ounces of margarine and working them into fine breadcrumbs before using some milk or water to bind them into a pastry until you have a pliable pastry dough.

The way to make puff pastry from this point is to roll the pastry out flat and then fold half of it towards the centre of the pastry that has been rolled out and then roll the pastry with a rolling pin. This technique should be repeated around ten times so the pastry has plenty of air in it.

When the pastry was completely rolled I used half of it to line two centimetre deep and twenty-five centimetre wide pie dish, which I had previously greased. I then added the steamed vegetables, twenty five grams of crushed walnuts and the lentil mixture which I poured on top of the vegetables so that a proportion of the liquid they had been cooked in filtered evenly throughout the pie.

I then squeezed the juice of half a lemon onto the filling of the pie and then covered it with the remaining pastry making sure to press the edges of the pastry that topped it into the edges of the pastry covering the bottom of the dish. I then cut three slits in the top of the pie to allow some of the heat to escape during cooking and brushed the pastry with skimmed milk to keep it from drying up when in the oven.

I cooked the pie in the oven for 30 minutes at 170 degrees (180 for non-fan ovens) until the edges became a golden brown colour and then served it with some boiled peas. The pie proved to have a rich taste thanks to the wine, pastry and the rosemary while the lentils provided plenty of protein and the vegetables gave much substance to the dish. This pie certainly ticked all the boxes for being a fortifying winter meal.

Golden brown at the edges and ready to serve

A cross section of the pie midway through the meal. 

Hearts of Artichoke

After a chilled out Friday in mid-November at the local snooker club with an ex-work colleague I followed it up with another mellow Saturday and Sunday of quiet winter walks and early nights due to a number of active things I had been involved in over the last month or so finally catching up with me.

On the Sunday afternoon I made a soup that I had been meaning to for some time but had been stopped by the fact that I had not been able to find a supplier of artichoke locally until I recently discovered a niche supermarket out in the sticks that sells canned artichoke hearts.

Today's album on the player was Yes' 1977 offering Going for the One. The band have created some excellent music over their career that rocks and is pretty atmospheric. However to be fair to their critics they have also been responsible for some genuine rubbish. It is perhaps for this reason that the NME once described them as the worst band ever, obviously the NME had not heard Blue, Hearsay or One True Voice before coming to this rather unfair judgment on the band.

As the pounding title track of the album bounced between the speakers I fried five whole whole garlic cloves (after having first topped and tailed them and peeled them) with a large white Spanish onion that was about the size of a cricket ball and had been sliced into very thin pieces. I fried them for about fifteen minutes in olive oil until the onions became translucent and the veins were visible. I then drained the hearts of artichoke from the two cans they had arrived in and then added them to the onions and garlic. Next I added a pint of chicken stock, a quarter of a pint of milk then simmered the contents of the dish on the hob for around forty five minutes until the artichoke hearts softened.

After leaving the dish to cool off the hob for an hour I blended its contents and blended it on a medium setting on the blender so as to ensure the artichoke hearts were properly cut up. I then added the mixture to a pan with half a tub of plain Greek Yoghurt, stirred the yoghurt into the mixture and then warmed it through. The dish was then ready to serve.

The taste was interesting but memorable as the artichoke made it taste slightly sweet and the shredded artichoke pieces served to provide some much needed fibre.

The Artichoke in a pureed form in the soup. 

Sage Derby

On the first Sunday in November I was still recovering from the exciting late night epic Halloween Gig that I had attended on the Friday. In order to help regenerate myself for the week ahead I headed out with my puppy to a local beauty spot that's a viewpoint from which you can see five counties on a clear day and is in within about forty five minutes' walk of my house. On the way there I bumped into a scatty middle-aged woman who said she knew of me (but did not know me personally) and started asking me for careers advice. All things considered when I returned home I was therefore I was in need of some food to pick me up after the long walk and being verbally tackled by the bizarre woman.

As winter was now definitely now with us I made something including some traditional winter ingredients and for me nothing says winter like bread filled with sage and onion. I also had another good reason to make this bread as I intend to make for it a chili chess night to be held at the house of two good friends of mine at the end of the month.

The album of choice was my recently purchased re-mastered CD of the Walker Brothers' debut album 'Take it Easy with the Walker Brothers'. This edition features a number of bonus tracks from singles and EPs released at the same time as the original album which add only good things to the excellent mix of original songs and inspired covers pervading the original record. Choice cuts include 'Make it Easy on Yourself'', 'Dancing in the Street' and their take on Bob Dylan's 'Love Minus Zero (No Limit)'.

The first job was to lightly fry for around ten minutes a diced white onion, six shredded sage leaves and a tablespoon of dried sage. The trick with frying these ingredients was to ensure that the onions went transparent but did not burn and that the sage was softened without burning. When the frying was complete I took the pan of sage and onion off the hob and left it to cool.

Next job was to make the dough and I did this by mixing fourteen ounces of white bread flour and a sachet of yeast in a mixing bowl before adding the sage and onion and gradually adding half a pint of water to the mixture. The trick was to add the water gradually so as to allow the dry ingredients time to absorb it and avoid the dough becoming overly sloppy. If you try this one at home do make sure you have some spare flour on hand if your dough comes out too wet at first.

Once the dough was dry but easy to manipulate I kneaded it by punching it hard in the bottom of the bowl and then turning it over and doing the same to the other side of the dough. It may help readers who try this recipe to imagine the dough is the face of someone you dislike so you put the required energy into kneading the dough together.

Once the dough was kneaded into a ball I left it in a warm place to rise for about an hour. I then cooked it on 190 degrees (200 for non-fan ovens) for twenty five minutes until it began to brown around the edges and I could pull a skewer out of it clean.

The results were satisfying; the richness of the bread coupled with the sage and onion served to make it taste like a really rich stuffing that you would serve with a roast dinner. I will definitely try and make this for the upcoming chili and chess night.

Like a big ball of stuffing- but tastier and richer. 

Barleycorn

The trip to town on the Wednesday of my week off saw my recent past flash before me; I saw someone from school walking behind me, a  current fraternal contact stopped me near the largely deserted market stalls and touchingly I bumped into an old boss who I admire immensely. I was able to tell her as to how things had changed over the last few years and that I had pushed myself towards a proper career thanks largely to her which made it a warm reunion for both of us. Tellingly she parted with the words "everything happens for a reason". Maybe she was right.

The fourth piece of my past to come flying back at me was when I visited the town's newly opened record shop and picked up a secondhand copy of Radiohead's groundbreaking 1995 effort "The Bends". When I was at uni I fell out badly with a housemate who was obsessed with the band and therefore to me they were always guilty by association to an extent.

However the following day as I listened to the album while making a barley and sweetcorn casserole I was able to marvel at the sheer quality of the album. There are many high points and it's certainly one of those albums that reveals something new each time you listen to it. The best tracks include the opening distorted stomp of 'Planet Telex' and the biting power of 'Just' as well as the dreamy cynicism of 'Fake Plastic Trees'.

The casserole recipe was quite simple. I first fried eight ounces of Pearl Barley  for five minutes until they began to brown. I then added a pint and a half of vegetable stock to the Le Cresceut dish that the Barley was frying in and boiled it vigorously for three quarters of an hour while adding more stock if the dish looked to be boiling dry.

In the meantime I boiled two sets of sweetcorn on the cob for half an hour to soften them up and once they had softened I drained them and sheered the sweetcorn from the cobs. I then cut the sweetcorn into small squares and added it to the barley, after it had cooked for its allotted time, with a quarter of a pint of creme freche.

I stirred the contents of the Le Cresceut dish well and after a further five minutes of warming the dish through I served it. I had never tried pearl barley before but it made a textured and enjoyable alternative to rice while the sweetcorn and the creme freche added flavour to the dish that made it fortifying and filling. The meal certainly set up well for the following days trip to Manchester and Sheffield which involved cocktails on the 23rd floor of the Manchester Hilton, Danish food, an Ellie Goulding gig and meeting some exciting characters.

You'll find it hard to locate a more healthy and fortifying meal than this. 

Rule Daal

On the Tuesday of my recent week off in October after surviving my half-yearly check up at the Dentist I went for a dish that wouldn't be too hard on my teeth. I am very much a fan of curry and other spicy dishes so with this in mind I went for a Red Lentil Daal.

To continue with the heavy rock theme of the recent soundtracks to my culinary projects I stuck Hawkwind's 1975 space-rock masterpiece 'Warrior on the Edge of Time' . Released in 1975 it finds the band near the peak of their powers with epic and driving songs washed with synthesizers, saxes, guitars, driving bass and atmospheric flute such as "Assault and Battery" and "Golden Void". The album still sounds fresh today and sections of it clearly influenced the punk-rock movement that emerged two years later and lots of today's ambient and trance music.

I boiled eight ounces of white rice for around half an hour and while the rice boiled I did the following:

1. I fried in my Le Cresceut dish two ounces of sliced ginger root, one teaspoon of coriander, one teaspoon of turmeric, one teaspoon of ground cumin and three finely sliced cloves of garlic. As these ingredients slowly fried for a couple of minutes I cut up a yellow pepper into one centimetre squares and added it to the dish.

2. While these ingredients fried I boiled eight ounces of red lentils fiercely in a frying pan for around twenty minutes until they began to turn golden were soft enough to cut with the edge of a spoon. I took care to ensure that by the time they had cooked they had absorbed most of the water they had boiled in and could therefore they could be added straight to the Le Cresceut dish.

After the lentils had cooked with the contents of the Le Cresceut on a low heat for a further ten minutes I served them with the boiled white rice. The combination of Turmeric, Cumin, Ginger Root and Garlic served to help rid me of my cold that had been troubling me for a few days as the intense flavours cut through my sinuses and brought a real freshness to my day.

The Daal glowed a dull gold colour as a result of the bright yellow Turmeric in the recipe.

Butterflies are free to fly

One thing I always like to do at the start of a week off is to make some cake to consume periodically during the course of the week. This time round I decided to make some butterfly cakes. The soundtrack was Cat Stevens' final album 'Back to Earth' which was recorded in 1978 and was his last record for nearly thirty years. The album was Stevens' best since his peak in the early seventies with the one-two punch of 'Tea for the Tillerman' and 'Teaser and the Firecat'. It is quite melancholy and one senses an era ending as the album unfolds but there is also an engaging purity and passion to the record that perhaps was due to Stevens recently converting to Islam which gave him a new focus in life.

I first made the sponge mixture by creaming together four ounces of low-fat margarine with four ounces of caster sugar until the grains of sugar in the bowl had been fully absorbed by the margarine. I then beat two eggs in a separate bowl and gradually stirred each into the mixture, which by now had become somewhat sloppy. So as to thicken the mixture enough to cook it properly I added four ounces of self-raising flour and stirred it in until the mixture had a consistency akin to that of a thick Angel Delight Pudding.

I greased sixteen patty tins in a baking tray with more margarine and then added enough of the mixture to reach the top of each individual tin. I cooked the mixture on 180 degrees, 190 for non-fan ovens, for twenty minutes and then put the tray to one side to cool.

While the sponges were cooling I made some butter cream icing by adding two ounces of low-fat margarine and four ounces of icing sugar to a bowl and stirring them together thoroughly using the same technique as I had to cream the margarine and sugar for the sponge mixture. This created an icing that was at first runny but set hard like cement after a period.

Once the sponges had cooled I took each out of its container and cut the top off them. I then cut each top in half length-ways and where I had removed the top from each sponge I put a layer of icing and then attached the two slices of sponge back onto each cake in the shape of a butterfly's wings.

I don't eat a lot of traditionally sweet cakes of this type however as I was on holiday this made a pleasant change and by using low-fat margarine it ensured that the sweetness in the cake was a tempered by a limited amount of fat.

Winged wonders- the freshly iced cakes.

Casseroled Pumpkin

The third part of my mission to use Pumpkin as an ingredient in every course of my evening meal last Saturday ,as a result of it being Halloween Weekend, was to make a Pumpkin Casserole. To me using Pumpkin in recipes is symbolic of the onset of winter as I'll make it at the time that it's Halloween which is invariably the time when the clocks change to British Wintertime.

The album I listened was by an act who's music always reminds me of wintertime; the album was the Walker Brothers' 1978 offering Nite Flights. The Walkers'  work, and particularly the solo work of their most famous member Scott Walker, has with its use of layers of strings and latterly electronic and avant garde touches an almost claustrophobic feel that reminds me of dark nights and short days. In that respect it is a perfect soundtrack to winter. Nite Flights was the final album in a trilogy recorded in connection with the Walkers' short lived comeback and their last album to date. The previous two albums were smothered with lightweight but enjoyable easy listening material .However this album dabbles in electronica and everything from the cover to the lyrics suggests a darkness hidden within which are some first rate songs that influenced David Bowie among others.    

As the opening pulses of 'Shutout' bounced out of the speakers I fried in my Le Cresceut dish 2lb of tomatoes. Prior to placing the tomatoes in the dish I cut them into five or six pieces so as they would cook more quickly. I lightly fried the tomatoes until the skins began to peel off. When they were at this stage I turned off the heat and left them to cool in the dish for ten minutes. The fact their skins were peeling made them easier to puree when the time came.

After ten minutes I took a mixing bowl and balanced a sieve over the bowl and then gradually added the cooked tomatoes to it. The trick here is to push the tomatoes from side to side using a wooden spatula so that the soft flesh and the juice filters through the sieve and into the bowl below. In doing this the skins of the tomatoes are left on top of the sieve and discarded. It's a laborious process but one that's worthwhile as when all the skins are discarded a tasty puree is left for inclusion in the casserole.

After the tomato puree had been prepared I took the flesh from a pumpkin the size of a football and cut it into cubes. The extraction of the pumpkin flesh is certainly a challenge; the first step is to take a very sharp knife (as you will break the blade from the knife otherwise if you use a blunt one; believe me I know) and cut the top off the pumpkin. You need to then cut it in half length-ways and then cut the two halves in half. At this point you're left with lots of stringy pith with seeds  attached to it that is damp and sticky to the touch. The trick is to cut underneath the roots of the pith and then scoop them out with the seeds. This leaves the edible flesh that can then be cut from the skin, cubed and washed.

I sliced a large onion up thinly together with three cloves of garlic and fried them lightly with some fresh Rosemary leaves and fresh Basil leaves. In the meantime I boiled eight ounces of red lentils for twenty minutes in a pan in just enough water to cover them. When the lentils were soft I added them to the pumpkin, onion, garlic and herbs which were still frying in my Le Cresceut. I then added the tomato puree to the Le Cresceut, stirred it into the rest of the ingredients and cooked it lightly on the hob for a further five minutes.

To make the dish ready for serving I cooked it in the oven at 165 degrees (175 for non-fan ovens) for fifteen minutes after which time it was ready to serve. For a casserole without meat this one had a lot of richness and flavour. As a rule pumpkin is pretty bland vegetable but when it's cooked with rosemary, basil, garlic and onion it comes alive with taste. Although the tomato puree was an effort to prepare the fact it was fresh gave it an edge over its tinned counterpart found in supermarkets which often has an artificial taste. The lentils meanwhile provided the necessary protein to help fortify me against the colder weather now accompanying the changing of the clocks.

An eclectic mix of lentils, herbs, fruit and vegetables