Beef pie

Marinaded the beef overnight in red wine, rosemary, thyme, bay.
Then cooked onions, removed them from the pan, then tossed the beef in flour, and browned in the pan. Added marinade and herbs, some more wine and little water. And mushrooms. Cooked on the stove for about an hour.

I had some puff pastry in the freezer from making the sausage rolls the other week, so we defrosted that and it was ready to go. Brilliant.

I let the pie filling cool completely before putting the pastry over the top. Baked in a 200C oven for 40 minutes.
Unfortunately the bubbling gravy found a gap round the edge, and spilled out  a bit. No great horrors, but would have been better not to happen.

Served with some celeriac & potato mash and curly kale.

YUM.

Venison pie

This was partly a 'clear up the left-overs' pie - but with some choice venison from the game man at the market.
We used up the gravy from the partridges the other week, some small carrots we put in there whole, some shallots (often spelled shorlots at college) left over from the thai curry paste, paris brown mushrooms that we have a surfeit of as they looked great at the market, and remnant puff pastry from the tarte tatin. We had to crack open some red wine, which went down very well with it. Also used up half a celeriac I had lying about, which I had mashed up. Matt's a bit over celeriac mash and has retreated to plain potato. Unfortunately for him - its still my favourite - lifting the gag-worthy heaviness of just potato and adding that superb sweet and sour aniseed flavour. Absolutely cracking.

lemon drizzle and cassoulet

in college:
Lemon drizzle cake -
lemon sponge with lemon glace icing. Looked great! Made 3 sandwich cakes which were shipped off to the magical 'Stores'. Must find a way of retrieving cakes from the Stores.

at home:
Cheese scones - were slightly too shallow - but taste great. Make sure dough is 1inch thick next time
White spelt bread - needed slightly longer in the oven. but good crumb. tasted very yeasty tho', need to work on that flavour.
Lemon cake - repeat of what was made in college.

Cassoulet with celeriac and potato mash:
Pork and fennel huge sausage from Bath Farmer's market - really excellent.
Butter beans and cannelini beans - soaked from dry.
Also used up bacon and chipolatas in the fridge.
Celeriac went very nicely with the fennel in the sausage.