Nursery Foods: Chicken Pie & Sticky Toffee Puddings

I really hope you enjoy making and eating these as much as we did.I make individual ones, as my lot all come home at different times and I find it easier to keep in the fridge until they arrive home. 

Chicken Pie

1 leek

3 stalks of fresh thyme

20g butter 

2 tbsp olive oil non virgin

2 rashers of bacon

700g cubed chicken

2 chicken stock pots or cubes mixed into 300 ml boiling water

2 tbsp double cream

a packet of fresh puff pastry or homemade if you have time.

an egg beaten with a fork

Slice the leeks into discs the thickness of £1 coins

Heat the butter and oil in a 10x3 inch frying pan

Snip the bacon into small lardons and fry gently until light pink

Add the chopped leeks and leaves from the thyme salute until really soft

With a slotted spoon remove the leeks and bacon leaving behind the oil.

Turn up the heat and fry the chicken until all the pink on the surface has gone, add the leeks back into the pan. Turn the heat back to medium.

Continue to cook for 5 minutes the add the chicken stock reduce by half. 

Roll out the pastry to just cover the frying pan or pie dish.

Stir in the double cream until well combined. Leave to cool. Transfer into a pie dish or individual ones if prefered. 

Preheat the oven 200˚c

Cover the filling with the pastry and score lines gently making diamond shapes across the top, brush with a little beaten egg, bake for about 25-30 minutes until golden and puffy, serve immediately.  

Individual Sticky Toffee Puddings  

175g soft brown sugar
60g soft unsalted butter
200g self raising flour
3 tbsp golden syrup
2 egg 
300g dried dates/prunes
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
300 ml boiling water

For the toffee sauce:
150g Dark brown soft sugar
100g butter
250 ml double cream                      preheat the oven to 180
8 buttered ramekins

1. Boil a kettle and pour 250ml of boiling water over the 250g of the fruit, cover and leave for 10 minutes.Chop the remaining 50g of fruit and place into the bottom of the buttered ramekin dishes 

2. In a freestanding machine whisk together the sugar and butter, until light and fluffy

3.Turn the machine to slow and add the syrup and eggs

4. Sieve the flour and bicarbonate and add to the mixture whisk until well combined

THEN:

1. Add the bicarbonate soda to the fruit and puree with a hand held blender or in the food processor
2. Add to the batter and spoon into a 8 buttered ramekins
3. Bake for about 30-40 minutes in a preheated oven.
4. For the toffee sauce put all the ingredients into a pan over a medium heat, stir until everything is melted and well combined.
5. Turn out the puddings and spoon over the sauce

Nursery Foods Part 2: Sausage & Mash and Raspberry Rice Pudding Meringues

Now that winter is drawing in I want cosy foods. The sort of food that is like a warm hug on a plate. I think all of us secretly like to be looked after and these are the foods that give you that feeling of being a child and make you feel secure. 

Sausage and Mash, a humble meal but for me it can be fit for a king or at least my 3 Princes! (I use that term loosely as I'm sure no Prince would leave every light on in the house and wet towels all over the floor).

I start with(Per Person):
3 sausages 
Half a peeled red onion 
Half a garlic head

Prick the sausages, chop the red onions into quarters and leaving the garlic in it's skin just chop straight down the middle. 

Place in a large baking tray but don't over crowd as you want a nice baked rather than boiled dinner. 

Drizzle with some Olive oil. I use some thyme infused oil that I make up myself or sprinkle over some thyme leaves. 

Bake in a hot 210c oven until well baked. You may need to finish the onions off on their own.

Whilst my sausages are cooking I peel and boil my potatoes, add a large pat of butter and some cream, mash, then add a tablespoon of creamed  horseradish. 

Whip in with a wooden spoon. Move all of the sausages, garlic and onions to a serving plate to keep warm. Sprinkle some gravy granules into the baking tray then add a splash of water and whisk making sure to mix in all the lovely crispy bits that are stuck to the pan. 

Plate up and serve.

For the Raspberry Rice and Meringue Pud
Years ago I saw this idea on TV. I'm not sure but I think it could have been James Martin. 

Anyway I've wanted to try it but you know how it is. I just cooked and baked in my comfort zone, mainly doing the same stuff week in week out. If I found a thing that cleared the plates I did it until my lot moaned, that is the wonderful thing about the last year I have experimented. 

It has given me the ability to try and experiment and you know what my lot love it. I so wish I'd tried more ideas on them all years ago. For this pudding I know it seems a little amount of sugar in the rice but it really is sweet with the jam and meringue so please trust me.

For the rice pudding

Cover a pyrex dish base with pudding rice

Fill 3/4 full with milk about 2 pints

Add a knob of butter

Quarter of a cup of caster sugar

Cover with a lid.

Put into a preheated oven 220 for 30 mins

Turn the oven down to 100 and bake for 2 and a half hours

Stir in some extra milk if it needs to be loser and the zest of an orange

For the Meringue

4 egg whites 

200g caster sugar

150g raspberries

In a clean bowl of a freestanding machine whisk the egg whites until soft peaks, slowly add the caster sugar little by little.

Reserving 6 firm big raspberries pass the rest through a sieve, discard the pips and put the puree to one side. Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with an open star nozzle.

Now divide the rice pudding between 6 ramekin dishes, spoon half a teaspoon of raspberry jam onto the centre of each, then stud with a fresh raspberry, pipe a swirl of meringue onto the top, drizzle with the raspberry puree, bake in a preheated oven for about 18-22 min.

Serve with some fresh raspberries