A month or so ago I ventured to the wilds of the Welsh borders to stay in a swanky log cabin with some friends. The cabin was in a beautiful setting and we drank muchos vino and some
amazing cocktails. More about that to follow. In order that we could eat and drink well and survive a weekend in the wilds we brought supplies. Emma brought along some pie filling and some pastry to make a pie.
Whilst we credit Jamie Oliver with the recipe credit for the filling goes to Sickmouthy and credit for bringing it altogether into food on a plate goes to the lovely Emma.
Skip forward to the other day and I’m watching Jamie Oliver on the tellybox doing his turkey and leek pie so, remembering just how tasty Emma and Sickmouthy’s pie was decided to cook it for grubup with the turkey leftovers. It has to be said it is a very good pie and it’s pretty damn simple as well as adaptable.
Essentially it’s a loads of leeks chopped and sweated down till fairly mushed. Fry off a bit of bacon. Add the leftover meat, a bit of flour to thicken, then some stock and creme fraiche (i had none do used double cream) and cook down again. Drain the gravy/sauce into a different receptacle for later and using puff pastry cover the meat/leek mix. I did the full on Oliver thing of sage and chestnuts rolled into the pastry too. Cook in the oven and serve with whatever you like and a bit of the yummy gravy.
I am over simplifying but really aside from checking seasonings and chucking in a bit of garlic (I am garlic obsessed) a bit of dried oregano (had no thyme) there was far less effort
required than I put in when making say a steak and ale pie. Full belly and good memories of a lovely dinner in a log cabin also.
Which brings me nicely back to those Welsh wilds where we all done gone broke the rules. Another story altogether but you probably had to be there. In the spirit of ensuring none of us went hungry Louiza had made an utterly delish vege lasagne and Debs made a fart inducing soup that demanded we eat seconds. I’m quite lucky that my friends can cook too. We ate well that weekend. You may wonder why I, your recipe bastardiser didn’t take any preprepared grub. Well I was travelling on the train and that’s my excuse. Watch me stick to
it.
No weekend away would be complete though without the booze. Star of the weekend was the Violet Martini courtesy of Louiza. I’ve scoured Liverpool for the necessary constituent ingredients and so far have only managed the raspberry Absolut and the vanilla Absolut, which if they reside in my freezer much longer are going to be imbibed violet-used or not!!!!!!
Re swanky log cabins, the hot tub deserves an honourable mention.
