Over a Candle

Today, as I was driving into school, two things happened.

The first was that, as I was driving, a gust of wind kicked up, bringing a lot of snow, making what was already lousy visibility much worse. So bad that I could not see the front of my car. All I could do was stop and hope that no one was behind me. If someone had been behind me, they wouldn’t have seen my car until they were on top of it, literally. Maybe not even then.

After a minute, the gust died down and I could see again. As I continued driving, the second thing happened: I heard the text message alert on my phone. When I could stop to check, I was unsurprised to find that classes had been cancelled. I wish they had been cancelled before I left home, but I was glad that no more students would try to drive in. I really wish, though, they had been cancelled before Ronni (and others) had driven into work.

Ah well, I returned home and got to work. Ronni made it back safely, too.

I did some school work and then got busy making another batch of pasties. These would be for lunches this week, rather than dinner tonight. I liked the idea of keeping them around for lunches so much, and had the ingredients for another batch, so I made them again. This time, I took pictures:

I made a couple of alterations. First, instead of trying to cut out the dough, I simply divided it into eights and rolled out each into roughly a circular shape. That accomplished two things. First, the size was closer to what I wanted for a lunch meal. Second, the dough gets stiffer every time you have to reroll it, so this way I only had to roll out each bit of dough once. Also, I don’t have anything about 6-8 inches to use to cut out the dough, anyway.

The other alteration was to use some of Ronni’s soy milk in place of the egg wash. I didn’t use an egg wash the first time I made the recipe. I think they turned out a little dry and didn’t brown up much. You can see that they browned nicely this time. Also, using a little soy milk on the edge of the circle, before crimping it closed, helps seal the pastry a bit better.

I haven’t tried them yet, but they look and smell delicious. Now I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.

And now for the “random” part of the post… Last Tuesday, I took a picture of the hoar frost that covered the trees that day. I wish I had gotten a picture later in the day when the sky turned blue. The frost looks even better against the blue sky. This is still pretty, though. Enjoy!

My Twitter update yesterday about putting pasties in the oven seem to cause a bit of an uproar on Facebook yesterday. I don’t know where I first heard about pasties, but I’ve known about them for a long time. These are a food item that apparently originated in Cornwall, England. I have come to think of them as the original Hot Pocket. They have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with strippers. Honest. The things I made yesterday are pronounced with a short “a,” not a long “a.” (So, something like “pass-tee.”)

I saw the recipe in our newspaper a week or so ago, and I thought I’d try it. Let me be completely clear… This is NOT an authentic Cornish pasty recipe. The crust is probably flakier than it should be. And I put carrots in the filling. Those two things along make it not terribly authentic.

But they were very, very tasty. Since several people have indicated an interest in the recipe, I figured I’d post it here.

The pastry dough is pretty straightforward, though I’ve never made pastry dough before, so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. (I’m not counting the rugelach dough.)

For the pastry:

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
2/3 cup butter, cut into small pieces
5-6 tablespoons ice water

Blend the flour and the salt together, then cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Put in a tablespoon of water and toss gently with a fork. Repeat until the dough begins to come together. Shape the dough into a ball, then wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

For the filling, I used a variation of the shepherd’s pie filling I make. (My shepherd’s pie recipe is taken from The Joy of Cooking. That book has a very different pastry recipe for pasties. You might want to check it out, if you have it. It seems likely to be less flaky and closer to the authentic Cornish pasties.)

For the filling:

I cut up a couple of potatoes into small cubes. I boiled the cubes for about five minutes, just to make sure they were well cooked.

Then I sauteed the potatoes in 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil along with:

1 medium carrot (cut up into small pieces)
1 onion, diced
1 stalk of celery (cut up into small pieces)

Saute over a medium (or a little lower) heat for about 15 minutes.

Then I add one package of the Yves ground beef substitute to the pan and let it cook for a couple of minutes just to warm up. (Using ground meat makes this really a cottage pie, rather than a shepherd’s pie, if that’s what I was making. For my non-vegetarian friends, you can use a pound of ground beef. Or cubed meat, if you prefer. Obviously, if you are using real meat, you want to make sure it’s cooked through. Probably best to pre-brown it before adding it to the veggies.)

Add a heaping tablespoon of flour and let the mixture cook for a couple of minutes to let it soak up the oil. Then up the heat a bit and add

3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
dash of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Let it cook and thicken.

You want to let the filling cool to room temperature (or refrigerate it) before putting it in the pastry dough.

Once the dough has sit in the refrigerator long enough, take half and roll it to about 1/8 inch thickness. Use a plate or a bowl to cut out two 6-inch circles. Put filling in the middle, fold up the dough and crimp it shut. (The recipe calls for coating the outside of the dough with a beaten egg, but I didn’t, and it came out just fine. If you don’t have anyone in your house who objects to eggs, you can try it.) Then cut out the other two circles from the other half. Take the scraps from both cuttings to get two more circles. You should be able to get six pasties from the dough. (And, if you use way too many veggies, like I do, you’ll probably have a little filling left over.) Cut a slit into the top of each pasty.

Bake on 375 for about half an hour.

You can eat them hot, let them cool, refrigerator or freeze them. Ours didn’t last long enough to try those last few ideas. Given the prep time, though, I can see the advantage of making these ahead.

Enjoy! Let me know if you try any variations that you like and want to suggest.