Chicken and stuffing pie

This is the ultimate comfort food pie - you will love it.

As with all great pie recipes, it comes from Lisa Faulkner - her books are my favourite and this recipe is from her most recent book which I would highly recommend. I have also made her chicken and mushroom pie (click here for recipe) and her turkey and leek pie before (click here for recipe)

I changed Lisa Faulkner's recipe a bit, adding garlic and wholegrain mustard to mine, and I also used half the amount of stuffing to her recipe which I thought was the perfect amount, but if you love stuffing and want it oozing then feel free to double my quantity! The stuffing is layered between two sheets of puff pastry so I was sceptical and thought this may make the pie soggy but no no no, it was absolutely perfect and had the most delicious flavour and textures.

I used leftover roast chicken from the previous night to make this pie (click here for recipe!) I would highly recommend using leftover roast chicken because it just has such great flavour and will be moist and tender, and you can use a mixture of breast, thigh, wing etc. Equally, if you are wanting to make this so desperately (which you should be) and haven't got any leftover roast chicken, then cooking chicken thighs or breasts would still work.

Bake this pie and then curl up on the sofa in comfort food heaven. A perfect weekend treat with some oven cooked chips and a glass of wine.

Serves 4

- 85g sage and onion stuffing

- 50g butter

- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 1 onion, chopped

- 50g flour

- 200ml chicken stock

- 150ml single cream

- 2 tsp wholegrain mustard

- 500g cooked chicken, torn

- 200g mushrooms, sliced

- handful of fresh parsley, chopped

- black pepper

- 375g ready rolled puff pastry (Sainsbury's size - quantity can vary)

- 1 egg, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Make the stuffing (mix with boiling water according to packet instructions) and set aside.
3. Fry the garlic and onion in the butter for 5 minutes, or until softened.

4. Mix in the flour, then add the chicken stock, cream and wholegrain mustard. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Stir in the cooked chicken, mushrooms, parsley, and pepper, and cook for a further 5-10 minutes.

6. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish.

7. Cut two layers of pastry to fit the pie dish. Spread one layer with the prepared stuffing.

8. Place the other sheet of pastry on top of the stuffing and press into the other sheet of pastry.

9. Brush the insides of the pie dish above the filling with beaten egg, then place the pastry on top, pressing lightly into the sides to mould to the shape of the dish. Brush the top of the pastry with egg and using a sharp knife, pierce three slits into the middle.

10. Cook in the oven for around 30 minutes, or until bubbling inside and golden brown on top.

Enjoy :)

Baked raspberry cheesecake

This cheesecake was divine! I had never baked a cheesecake before this; only ever whacked together some cream cheese and mascarpone and put it on top of a biscuit base - and the conclusion is that it really doesn't taste that good this way, you might as well be eating cream cheese out the tub! And we all know that feels far naughtier than one slice of this crunchy, creamy, soft, juicy, sweet cheesecake. Or maybe not...

I got this recipe from the Comfort Food recipe book I have (which I linked and put a picture of in my baked carbonara post). The recipe was for a Manhattan Cheesecake with a blueberry topping - basically just a syrupy coulis drizzled on top. I had seen so many pictures online, however, of marbled cheesecakes, and so I really wanted to try this. The majority of the recipes were from American writers, however, where cups are flying at you in all directions - I don't think anyone has the time or effort to convert those! So I followed the recipe from my cookbook for the vanilla cheesecake, but I didn't do a soured cream topping which is typical of a Manhattan style cheesecake. I then made a raspberry coulis and marbled it in and the outcome was fab. It didn't really sink that much in the middle which was brilliant as well. So this cheesecake is perfect if you're trying to impress (as the marbling technique looks great and is fairly simple to do) and if you want a naughty, comfort food.

Ingredients:

- 85g butter

- 200g digestive biscuits, crushed

- 400g cream cheese

- 2 large eggs

- 140g caster sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla essence

- raspberries (can't remember how many I used, but probably a punnet)

- icing sugar (couple of spoonfulls)

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees/gas mark 5 and brush an 8-inch springform tin with oil.

2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the crushed biscuits, stirring until coated in all the butter. Spread in the bottom of the tin, pressing down with your knuckles to check it is firmly covering the surface.

3. Place the cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence in a food processor and process until smooth (I did this by hand, may take longer though). Pour over the biscuit base and smooth the top.

4. Crush the raspberries through a sieve (doesn't have to be particularly fine), and stir with some icing sugar. Spoon the raspberry liquid on top of the cheesecake in patches - basically blob it on in various places. Next, using cocktail sticks or a small pallette knife - depending on the effect you want - gently swirl through the raspberry patches. The picture below is what mine looked like at this stage, before I baked it.

5. Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until set. It should be a bit wobbly in the middle, but not liquid. Leave to stand for 20 minutes, then chill in the fridge for 8 hours, or overnight. (I think mine was only chilled for about 6 hours and it was absolutely fine so don't worry too much, as long as it is set enough to cut slices!)

6. Serve on its own or with extra raspberries, or cream, or a chocolate truffle.

Enjoy :)

Cheat's Italian calzone

I came across a 'cheat's calzone' in a student recipe book a while back; instead of pizza dough it is a wrap folded in half with filling inside. This makes it more suitable for a lighter lunch, as a proper calzone would be too filling. I changed around the ingredients to make a delicious italian one.

The ingredients:
- Mission deli wrap - Mediterranean herb (one)
- Sundried tomato antipasti (few pieces)
- Green pesto (teaspoon)
- Half-fat mozzarella (few slices)
- Fresh spinach leaves (few leaves)
- Extra virgin olive oil (drizzle for pan)

All of these ingredients can be found in Tesco, but I did get the pesto from Sainsburys, and the spinach from my local fruit & veg market!

Put the ingredients on one half of the wrap  ----->

Then fold the other half of the wrap over the filling, and heat a little olive oil in a frying pan. Gently fry each side of the wrap until crisp and golden brown!






  <---- It should look like this ---->





Try adding meat like salami or chicken, or change the ingredients completely! Another favourite of mine is tuna and mozzarella, or goats cheese and red onion.

Hope you enjoy :)                                                         
(all of these pictures were taken by me)