My First Pie!

Always fancied baking, in my head cakes pies and anything else I made always looked and tasted great, though have only ever tried baking cakes and they were well em!! made by me tasted good but looking like id dropped it then sat on it. In my defence i'm not Gordon F@*king Ramsey. Laying in bed one evening thoughts and memories popping into the emptiness that is my brain one stuck, it was of the baking my mam used to do when I was young, used to remember her in the kitchen with one of those large beige ceramic mixing bowls hand mixing the pastry and the remains of her cigarette balanced on the end of the kitchen bench, kitchen so hot it was like a sauna but she never complained, my mam always loved cooking for her family, So my mams skills should have rubbed of onto me, you would think right. So me being a typical bloke I decided to make my first pie, I remember how my mam baked in my head so how hard can it be ' famous last words'.

On Friday I went shopping and bought the ingredients that wern't in the cupboard, came home and began the simple task of baking a corned beef and potato pie. First off I peeled some potatoes chopped washed and put them into a pan then set away boiling. Next started on the pastry i'm a man I don,t measure Grrrr!, poured some plain flour into a mixing bowl with some butter i.e margarine then mixed it together with my fingers and yes I washed my hands i'm not silly. Got the mixture to a crumbly texture then added some water and mixed it together and then more water as it was a bit dry. Got it to a consistency I was happy with and then wrapped it in some cling film to put in the fridge, was going really well felt quite proud of myself got about a step from the fridge door and my lass chirp's up let me see the pastry, and in her "i'm a woman its in my genes tone" burst one of my many bubbles of the day and said "its to sticky needs to be thicker" and like the child I am I stomped off to the kitchen and unwrapped my bundle of happiness and threw it in the bowl and baptised it in flour and mixed it again, not that id ever admit but yes it was better after that.

Stuck the improved pastry into the fridge and left it for about 15 ish minutes. Got a tin of corned beef and opened it with out blood shed as those tins are lethal, I diced it up and left it, checked the potatoes needed a few more minutes giving me enough time to quickly peel and grate an onion. Taties ready drained and mashed them, next added the corned beef and the grated onion a little bit of salt and black pepper gave it a good mix then left it to cool.

Pastry rolling time, got the ball of pastry out of the fridge and unwrapped the cling film, pulled off a small bread roll sized piece heard that on a cooking program though they may have been baking bread rolls anyway, sprinkled flour onto the bench and dropped the pastry onto the bench, then got the only rolling pin we have in the house which belongs to the kids its tiny, I began rolling and in the word's of limp biscuit I kept on rolling rolling on, until it was just how I wanted it.

Got a plate out of the cupboard as this is a plate pie forgot to mention, told my lass who again bubble burstinly informed me "those plates aren't like the plates your mam used there not designed to go in the oven they will crack", my response "they didn't crack in the 3000°C kiln they were made in", man time I didn't listen. Got the commi chef to grease the plate.

Put the rolled pastry onto the plate and scooped the corned beef and potato filling into it,

rolled out another piece of pastry for the top, carefully placed it on top of the filling and trimmed the edge and gave it a good forking, rubbed milk all over it and popped it in the oven until it was done also made some little ones too.

That's the end result not to bad tasted great, and got the Ellie and Becky approval.