Wednesday, December 14, 2011

My Goodness, My Guiness


It was time for my December review and The Pig was kind enough to invite himself over and offer to eat my food and write a review. I knew I wouldn’t have much time on Wednesday, so I decided to do most of the cooking on Tuesday and decided on a Steak, Guiness and Cheese Pie by Pete (and Jamie) and Chocolate Pots (whatever they are).

I rushed home from work and was able to get the Chocolate Pots cooked before I headed out for dinner. I have these ramekins that have little plastic lids so I was pretty keen to use them. I read in the recipe that the mixture needed to be covered with foil before you put the pots in the oven so I thought I’d use the lids instead. Thank god I couldn’t find the lids so just foiled the pots and put them in the oven. The lids clearly would have melted and would not have been fun! The foil stuck to the top a bit, but peeled off pretty easily and it was all done.
After dinner I came home and started cooking the pie. I chopped up all the ingredients and started frying them. It wasn’t until halfway through doing this that I read the recipe and realised that the next steps were to put the pie in the oven for 90 minutes, mix it, put it back in the oven for 60 minutes, then assemble it with pastry and bake for 45 minutes. This was at about 10:30pm.
It would have been pretty easy to change the menu and do something else – but The Pig had requested (and already given) menu approval, I’d already brought all the ingredients, and I’d already cooked half of them. Coles does let me return a lot of stuff – but I fear they might not be so generous with half cooked ingredients.
So instead, I followed the recipe and put the mixture in the oven, set an alarm and went to bed. I even had to leave a note for Sian that said
“I’ve left the oven on, on purpose. I’ll turn it off some time after 1am”.

Ridiculous. I had some sleep, got up, mixed it, slept, got up, mixed it and chucked it in the fridge.
The next day it all went pretty smoothly. I forgot to grease the pie dish so the pastry got stuck to the bottom and we basically ate a pot pie (but then when I was packing up we got to peel all the half soggy half crispy pastry off the bottom and eat it with tomato sauce. Amazing). I burnt myself twice which is nothing unusual and I also melted the pictures on my oven mits, onto the pan. Opps.

The pie looked amazing and was actually really nice. I was worried about the meat after it being in the oven that long but I was quite impressed. We had it with chips and peas and were well happy. The Pig went back for seconds and took the leftovers home so I’m pretty sure he enjoyed it.

I put the Chocolate Pots back in the oven for 10 minutes and served them with icecream. They were OK but a kinda weird texture – I think that’s what they’re meant to be like and I still had no trouble scoffing it all until I felt sick I was so full. I may have snapped a spoon in half while serving the ice-cream but my modesty prevents me from mentioning this display of extreme strength.

All in all, I’m deeming it a success. We watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Eurotrip and 30 Rock, talked a whole heap of shit and ate A LOT! Very nice night all up. Bring on the review!

Tips: Read the recipe before you start cooking – timing is everything. If you’re using this recipe – read it with a magnifying glass – Pete didn’t realise he could take up more than one page in my book!

Music: Powderfinger (Pots); The Ricky Gervais Show (Pie)



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