That Was The Week That Was......including the WINNING fish pie.. Saturday to Friday, 18th-25th May 2013

What a busy week!! No time to blog as I went along, but here is a summary.

Some days eating out or ready made things, but some nice home cooked days too:

Saturday: I cooked a small joint of unsmoked gammon in the pressure cooker with cannellini beans and lots of vegetables , served with the first of the Jersey potatoes.

Mmmm gammon stock! Please note I love my gammon fat and don't trim it off.. Also, I finely chop up the soft silky pressure cooked gammon skin and add it back into the stock for extra gelatine and that lovely stickiness you get from real stock... no waste in this house. Mmmmm I love gammon!

Sunday: tapas style dinner... lovely tortilla and tarte flambée  from Unearthed with Sainsbury's TTD coleslaw:

Monday: A 5:2 fasting day. Thick, filling soup with the rest of the gammon, gammon stock, lots more root vegetables, peas and butter beans. So good and under 500 calories! 

Tuesday: quiz night at The Bell, so a Bray's Cottage Pork Pie and the Veggie Board..

Wednesday: Lamb's Heart Stew - with lots of puy lentils and carrots. Cooked in the pressure cooker, so gorgeously tender and melting and delicious.  I know.. it doesn't look much. But beauty is sometimes more than skin-deep, yes?

Thursday:It was announced that I had won a Real Cooking Savoury Pie competition with Essential Cuisine stocks.. A most luxurious fish pie. Hurray!! I love Fish pie ..So in celebration I made one for dinner. Not as luxurious as the winning one.

 Jeremy, the Head Home Chef at Essential cooked ALL the pies in the final 12 of the competition, a major task. He has promised us photos of what he produced from our recipes, so I'll share that with you when I have it. I had only sent him a very  roughed out recipe for the Very Luxurious Fish Pie, trusting to his knowledge for him to fill in the gaps...

"VERY luxury fish pie: In a mixture of white wine and Essential fish stock, poach a mixture of fish to include smoked haddock, salmon, white fish (pollack is good), raw prawns. Remove from stock, retaining stock. Make veloute sauce with fish stock, retaining about a coffee cupful. Enrich stock with double cream, brown crab meat, chopped chives and chopped parsley, add Halen Môn smoked water to add extra smokiness if desired. Add fish and prawns and white crab meat. Pour into pie dish and allow to cool. Top with quartered hard boiled eggs. Steam potatoes and mash using retained stock to loosen, pipe over fish mixture, dot with salted butter bake for half an hour until golden brown. "

Wow! that is some luxury, and I am SO pleased to have won the competition with it.

But today isn't a luxury day, today's Fish Pie is a midweek what fish is in the freezer one. This had smoked haddock, smoked salmon and prawns, poached in milk not white wine today...hard boiled eggs on top, and nice mashed potatoes. The sauce was a bechamel made with the poaching milk , enriched with some double cream and a tablespoon of Halen Môn smoked water *I LOVE that stuff*

Fish pie for midweek is not always pretty, but it is always yummy!

Friday: another 5:2 fast day: Sainsbury's Pennoni pasta with half a pot of stir in tomato and olive sauce, with extra black olives and a couple of drained marinaded artichokes, and a dusting of parmesan... 456 cals ( I find fast days much easier to manage by not eating at all during the day,and allowing myself a substantial meal, I tried last time with a breakfast and small dinner, but felt hungrier than this way.. if you are 5:2 dieting, don't take this as the only way to go! )

So there you have it, a whole week all in one!  I hope you feel full up now...