Off to work
Look! Some dear friends made pasties after being inspired by my post. Theirs look like they turned out a lot better than mine did, which I think is the most fantastic thing in the world. It fills me with joy to see people experimenting in the kitchen!
A good disaster?
Alas, the life of a baker may not be in my future. It’s the dough, I tell ya, the dough. We are not fast friends. No ma’am! Okay, okay. It’s me, not the dough. I don’t have enough patience and haven’t taken the time to master my technique with frequent practice. I want all the homemade flavor without all the homemade work. Well as someone once told me, you can’t always have your cake.
Remember the other day when we made those cheese and onion pasties? Today, I decided to give the beef ones a try. You know, for authenticity’s sake. Oh, but how these pasties have turned me into a raging bull. I’m bout ready to rip my stove out of the kitchen and throw it into the backyard. Maybe I’ll toss the counter out while I’m at it. Relieve some stress!
When I sit back and think about it, it’s rather a miracle that my last attempt to make a pasty turned out at all. At the time, I thought my dough was too delicate. Wrong! This go around my dough was so soft, it kept tearing before I could begin to roll it out. I even stuck it in the fridge for awhile. Wrapping the meat mixture in it was down right impossible and instead of having a cute little half moon…I ended up with some strange ball with pieces of potato and carrot peeking through.
The only good thing about the whole thing is I turned the rest of the filling into a lovely beef stew. And discovered that I like rutabaga. And, of course, it was a humbling experience. You aren’t born a chef. You gotta earn your skill, learn it and master it. No worries! One day I will learn to work with dough. Just give me time.
And the lover really liked the stew. Points to me! Needless to say, I have no real recipe for you today and my pictures are limited. But hopefully you’ll be inspired to cook something up anyway. We all have our off days.
But if you like, you can whip up a stew/soup quite easily. Chop up some veggies- onion, potato, carrots, rutabaga, garlic.
Whoa! What’s that giant thing…? It’s a rutabaga! Yummy yummy turnip. Now mix your chopped up veggies with your stewing beef
Drizzle some olive oil in a stock pot and dump your mixture in. When the beef turns slightly brown, add your stock of choice. I used a little more than a cup of chicken stock with just over a cup of water and added in a bouillon cube for a boost of flavor. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, and ground mustard. Once everything boils together, turn heat real low and let simmer until your ready to eat. I had to mourn my lost pasty. It took some time.
Actually, I got two Cornish pasties made before I gave up and started on the stew. They weren’t bad, per se. The crust was just super crumbly and refused to hold together. It was more like eating a casserole than a hand pie. But at least the flavor was there. We will try, try again!
armadillas 