Saturday 18 June 2011

A week of colds and cooking

Over the last week, well few weeks, my family has been trying to fight off colds and flues.  I thought I was doing pretty well in avoiding it whilst nursing everyone back to health (or trying to), but this week it hit me as well.  Now I  have learnt that Mum's don't get to rest that much when they are sick, especially when the other members of the family are sick also, so to make my self feel a bit better I purchased a Donna Hay magazine (issue 57), just to read through on the couch.  That done I and needing nourishment and something to take my mind off feeling lousy I bought some ingredients and set about recreating some of her recipes.  Looking at the picture of the beef, Guinness and mushroom pie (p139) made my mouth water and brought back memories of sitting in an Irish pub in Tassy in the winter next to the wood fire with great friends, that is what I started with.  It took longer to make than I was expecting - part of that is due to not feeling crash hot.  I got the filling made and ended up having some of it on toast for tea mixed with Beerenberg Worcestershire Chutney.  Unfortunately due to being sick I couldn't taste anything!  The next night I still didn't get around to making the pastry, but had ready made puff pastry in the freezer.  I assembled the pie using that and was very happy with the result.  I could even taste it :-)

Also sick of buying food magazines and thinking that would be nice and never making it, I decided to try a few more recipes out.  The roasted tomato and thyme soup (p50) was just the thing to make us all better, or at least give us a shove in the right direction and now I have lemon shortbread (p89) in the oven and am going to make the beetroot and horseradish soup (p50) for tea.

The short bread is smelling wonderful. 

1 comment:

Shirley-Anne said...

Hi Rachael .Your kitchen would smell like a bakehouse or a much loved home . Hope that you all feel much better soon .