My invented recipe for leek/potato/cheese pasties turned out OK. I used a pound of leeks sliced small, a pound of potatoes chopped even smaller with my old auto-chop thing. Then cooked both in a spot of water in a bowl in the microwave,( covered with cling film with a couple of holes punched in) until the potatoes were soft enough for a knife to go in easily. I did them for a minute at a time and stirred them frequently.
I had already made up a batch of shortcrust pastry and put it in the fridge to chill and also cooked up a very thick cheese sauce, using a bit of butter, flour,2 tsp. mustard powder, half pint of milk ( made with powdered) and 8 oz grated mature cheddar.This was left to cool too.
Then I mixed the leek mixture with the sauce and added plenty of black pepper.
The pastry was rolled out and cut into rounds using a small saucepan lid and filling added, folded over, sealed with water and brushed with egg. Put on a greased baking tray and cooked for about 25 minutes in a medium oven they were nice and golden.
Wrapped in foil when cold, and popped in the freezer. This made 11! I tested one and it was very good ( Him Outside is away visiting our daughter this weekend so he will test later) While making pastry I thought I might as well make extra for pastry cases and four jam tarts with the last bits of trimmings.
A good mornings work.
Lots of lovely comments over the last few days.
Cro made me smile saying he was much too frugal to buy any frugal books!
Everyone enjoyed my Thursday thoughts blog which is good to know.
And I found some late comments on the "why am I blogging" post. So thank you for those. I didn't know so many people enjoyed reading my ramblings.
Update on 2 small cats. Polly the black one is almost settled although she still rushes out when we move about. Mabel - the tortoiseshell- creeps around the house but that's an improvement. So we are getting there slowly. The lady from Cats Protection rang to check we were happy to keep them and as they are micro-chipped they've now been registered as ours.
I spent a while yesterday evening playing with the Mysupermarket website and working out a "|feed your family for £40 a week" menu without porridge, lentils and chick peas and based on a roast chicken dinner at the weekend Then I look at Frugal Queens blog today and find that's almost exactly what she has written for her yesterday post. I could have read a book last night instead!!
The weeding of the flower garden has finally finished, probably just in time to start all over again.
Another phone call yesterday for a campsite booking for Easter - good news indeed - except that the information/games room is full of all sorts that shouldn't be there and the new gents toilets are not yet finished. ( Though we can use the ladies for everyone so that's OK). Four weeks to get everywhere ship shape.
and my final piece of news is that I spotted the teeny weeny tip of an asparagus shoot just poking through. Last year our first asparagus treat was one spear each on 25th April, so it looks as if we will be enjoying it much earlier this year.
