Sams Burger

Just a little piccy of the Chepstow Castle Inn's house burger, Off the menu to us I'm afraid as way too many calories but I just like looking at it ( sighs heavily ).

Debs

Hairy Bikers Meat and Potato Pie

I've watched a couple of episodes of the new programme now and this little recipe looked interesting and - given that we are all trying to lose weight and pies are OUT -  so had to give it a try. I leapt out and bought the book ( as you do ) and today was pie day. This was pretty easy as recipes go and here it is:

Serves 6 ( 335 kcals per portion )

1 Medium onion finely diced
2 Small carrots peeled and diced
2 Celery sticks trimmed and finely diced
250g/9oz lean minced beef steak
1 Tbspn Tomato ketchup
1 Tbspn Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbspn Brown sauce
1 Tbspn Plain flour
1/2 Tspn dried chiili powder
1/2 Tspn dried chiili flakes ( optional )
1/2 Tspn Freshly ground black pepper
200/7oz Floury potatoes peeled and chopped into oxo cube size chunks
300mls/ 1/2 a pint beef stock
75g/3oz frozen peas
Little spray oil for pie dish

For the Pastry

2 x 145g packs of pizza base
200mls/7fl oz lukewarm water
Plain flour for kneading
Little milk for brushing

Put the onion, carrot, celery and beef into a large pan and dry fry for a few minutes until the beef is no longer pink - keep stirring so that beef does not clump together.
Reduce the heat to a simmer and add tomato ketchup, brown sauce, Worcestershire sauce, chiili flakes and powder and pepper, cook for a minute, add stock and potatoes and simmer for about 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Remove lid for about 5 minutes to allow mixture to thicken up.
Remove from the heat, stir in the peas and cool.

To make the pastry, empty packets into a large bowl and follow instructions on the packet.
Divide into two portions and line a pre oil sprayed pie dish with one portion of the rolled out pastry.

Pour beef mixture into pie dish and cover with remaining pastry. Brush with milk. Snip a couple of holes into the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape.
Bake in oven 180/350/gas mark for about 15minutes, take out of oven , cover with foil and bake again for a further 15 minutes until nice and hot.

This recipe actually called for six little pies but I couldn't get my hands on the pie dishes hence the one large pie.

What was it like? well. it's ok, not terribly flavoursome and kind of felt like a pie for the sake of having a pie.
It wasn't bad but I would have to noodle with the seasoning next time to maximize the flavours.

Debs

Raspberry coulis

Made rather a lot of chocolate mousse again for a family dinner so decided to post a very quick recipe for the accompanying raspberry sauce:

1 Pack 300gms ripe raspberries
1 Tbspn icing sugar

So easy, place berries in a small pan and just warm gently to release their flavour. Pop into a liquidizer and blitz to a puree. Pass through a fine sieve to remove pesky pips. Add enough sugar to sweeten - but not enough to make it horribly sweet. Pour into a bottle for squeezing.

This will keep in the fridge for about a week.

Debs