Winter food favourites.

This time of year we keep a close eye on the weather forecast as we normally get some rain or snow or wind or maybe it'll stay sunny for a bit longer!  But what we don't to do is start an outside job and find it suddenly gets too cold to be painting a wall and that we've wasted time and money.

With that in mind, and the forecast saying cloud and not much above 10° yesterday, I thought I'd have a cooking morning.  There was steak and kidney with lots of gravy left from the night before, mince in the fridge, lots of potatoes and onions,  so I had a pie making morning.  Meat and potato pies may not sound exciting but with slow cooked onions for flavour, browned mince, add the cooked diced potato and finally a spoonful of gravy - steak and kidney yesterday but any left over gravy is good - and you have a really tasty pie. 

I made one batch of pastry and used that up,  made another lot too,  the end result was 11 individual meat and potato pies,  another 4 that I added curry paste to the gravy for a bit a difference,  4 steak and kidney pies, and then we had some for lunch as well.  There was flour everywhere, except in the storage box, need to go and stock up soon!   But we have lots of instant-ish lunches and evening meals.  Pre-cooking the filling, glazing the pastry with egg and then freezing the pie,  means it can come straight out of the freezer and into the oven - it just needs 40 minutes at 200°.   Plus, depending on your appetite, a big buttery jacket potato, or maybe some crunchy chips. 

Definitely winter warming food.  Otherwise known as comfort food.  Along with rice pudding,  steak and dumplings,  shepherds pie and pickled red cabbage or beetroot,  big hearty soups and crusty bread,   hot spicy wine,   porridge for breakfast,  ...... there are some lovely things about winter time involving food and drink!

Any more favourites anyone?