Making Pasties

Unusually for us it was just John and I at home today and it was a Sunday.  My sister was returning to the UK and she was meeting up with Mum before being bussed to the airport.  I had told her to keep an eye on the weather in the UK as snow had been falling and it had affected some of the airports.

John and I were on pasty making duty.  I had decided to follow the Traditional Cornish Pasty recipe which is published by the Cornish Pasty Association taking the view that they should know what they are talking about and hoping to avoid the failure I had with my pastry last year.  I hadn't realised though that they advocate making the pastry and letting it rest for 3 hours in the fridge!!!  So that is what we did and whilst the pastry was having a snooze we set about preparing the veggies, swede, potato, onion and beef skirt all cut to much the same size.

Whilst waiting for the pastry to snooze and having done the vegetables I spent some time in the garden - rain was forecast and rain came but after I had been able to cut back two lavender and a lantana plus I got John to help me remove the last remaining leaves on the wisteria.  The garden doesn't really know what is going on as I have plants which are flowering now which shouldn't.  The orange hibiscus are in full bloom.  I think they are going to have a shock because there is a definite change coming - shorts may have to be put away for this year sadly.

The construction of the pasties started and I was pretty pleased with my 'crimping'  I do think I should have cut the contents even smaller as I tore the pastry on the first pasty but after that I was ok.  We made five pasties ready for Boxing Day, a large one for John and three smaller ones for me, mum and Lilian and a spare in case those of us eating the smaller ones want more otherwise Mum will be able to have it on another occasion.

The remainder was constructed into a Pasty Pie, arguably this isn't a pie because there is only pastry on the top.  We made room for the individual pasties and then we were both looking longingly at the pie when John asked what I had planned for tea when we decided that we would cook the pie for Quality Control purposes so we could check on the pastry.  It was bloomin' lovely - so lovely that we actually polished off the lot - there didn't seem any point leaving just a small slice.  I am really looking forward to Boxing Day now!!!

We invited Mark and Nicky around this evening for a drink.  They are working on the lounge/dining room and so have been living out of their bedroom which can't be fun.  They stayed until it just started to rain - the forecasters were right!