Hello my darlings!
Did you have a good - nay, LOVELY long weekend? I did. I rushed most of the time but managed to get some serious luxuriating in on Monday morning. Also on Monday, I made the black cotton lycra skirt that I intended to make
before I began the Six Items or Less Challenge. As promised (in an effort to make myself feel better about my flakiness), I swapped out the woollen place-holder skirt for the Lycra one, but I had tweaked the pattern so much when I made it with the cotton Lycra so it wasn't as much of a fair swap as I'd earlier imagined. On the other hand - NEVER MIND. This is my arbitrarily imposed challenge and I can do what I like! (I can do what I like in my own house!)
And other than that, SIOL had been going really well. I've become very fond of having a kind of uniform, and having hardly any clothing to choose from saved my neck on Sunday when I only had fifteen minutes to get ready for a family lunch at Shannon's Dad's house. If I had had to make a decision there would have been no way that I could get dressed so quickly - however, because I had only two things left that were clean I just grabbed and ran.
The topic of arbitrarily imposed challenges brings me to - the delicious Steak and Kidney Pie that I made on Saturday night. It was my last week's challenge (from the list of Fifty-Two) to make something delicious with kidneys or liver but the week seemed to hurtle past and it was Saturday before I'd had a chance to do it - 24 hours after the self imposed end of the challenge! I still count it though, because I'm like that. Did I mention how delicious the pie was? It was AMAZING. I am fully planning to make it again, because there were too many people around to fully gorge myself.
The recipe was a mash up of the Edmonds cook book recipe and a recipe for Steak and Kidney Pudding in a book called (imaginatively)
Beef, so I feel totally entitled to share the love around.
crazy delicious steak and kidney pudding that will make your skirt fly up
Filling:
800g - 1kg steak and kidney (which I bought combined, from the butcher)
2 tbsps oil
2 onions
4 sticks of celery
1 tbsp plain flour
1 cup stock
400g can tinned tomatoes
bunch parsley
3 stalky twiggy bits of sage (our plant looked really sad so I just grabbed whatever I could)
salt
pepper
Soooo... heat up the oil in the pan and quickly cook the steak and kidney so it's sealed on the outside. Remove the meaty bits with a slotted spoon, throw in the onions and celery, and cook the lot until the onions are clear. Stir in the flour and cook for 30 seconds (I'm timing you). Gradually add the stock, stirring constantly, and bring the pan to a boil. Return your meaty bits to their happy home. Add the can of tomatoes and the herbs. Cover the pan and simmer for an hour (probably longer - closer to two?) until the meat is cooked. It's best to try a bit of steak in order to make absolutely sure that the meat is cooked through. Badly cooked cheap cuts suck the most. Also, you'll want to check the seasonings at this point, so it's imperative you try it, really. Then try it again because it's too delicious for words.
Pastry (adapted from a basic lard pastry recipe):
200g butter, at room temperature
400g self-raising flour (or 400g plain flour with three tsps of baking powder)
1 pinch salt
180ml cold water
Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and mix to a dough, then rest for 20 minutes.
Assembling (the business end of the pie):
Roll out the pastry 1cm thick, and line a 30cm pie plate. Carefully scoop out the meaty bits from the filling and put the meat and vegetables into the bottom of the pie case (you might want to fish out the bits of sage stalk though). Carefully spoon over 1/4 - 1/3 cup of the liquid the filling was cooked in. Roll out the pastry lid until about 2cm thick and put over the top of the pie; pinch the edges of the base and the lid together. Make a wee hole to let the steam out and brush the top with a mixture of an egg yolk and a tablespoon of water. Bake in the oven until the pastry is golden (about 40 minutes). You'll probably want to let it set for a bit before you cut in.
Serve in enormous delicious slabs with the reheated cooking liquid. Amaze and astound your friends and family.
Which brings me to: the topic of my extended family, as they were the people who were eating my pie! My Uncle Terry and Aunt Sue came over from the UK to visit my cousin Michael who now lives in Auckland, and they all came down to Wellington to visit us (the NZ branch of the fams). This was the first time I'd seen them since I was tiny. Dad and my littlest brother Luke joined us for dinner, and then Michael went out to Bea and Chap's goodbye party with Shannon and Jo and me. Apparently he fell off the bed the next morning due to hungoverness. Lightweight? Or having two tiny children?
The new glasses that I have been 100x excited about have finally arrived. I am wearing my favourites right now but I'm also getting that weird thing you get from new prescriptions where you a bit ill as your eyes adjust. Also, when I'm walking around my legs feel all long and stretchy which is a bit weird, and when I rode my bike home I felt like the tallest bicycle rider in the world. WOOOOOOOOO.
Here are the glasses, in all their many splendoured glory. And no, I can't keep my mouth shut. Why do you ask?
