Simple Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe

Just had to share this recipe, it is the BEST meat pie recipe I have ever found - and so surprisingly easy to make, and if you have no pastry it works perfectly with some creamy mashed potato!

Ingredients:
Pack of frying steak
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 heaped teaspoons of plain flour
Olive oil
Pack of mixed stewing or soup vegetables for speed (or chop them yourself!)
Pinch of mixed herbs
1 (500ml) bottle of Guinness
1 carton of passata
Roll of ready made pastry - either puff or shortcrust or both depending on preference!
1 egg, beaten or milk (to brown top)

Preparation:
 1. Mix beef with olive oil, salt and pepper, and flour until coated and then fry meat in a casserole dish until brown.
 2. Add the vegetable pack fry for a minute or two and add herbs
 3. Pour in the Guinness
 4. Add the passata and bring to the boil. Stir well, then simmer for 2 hours or until the meat is tender.
 5. By now the sauce should be nice and thick with an intensely tasty flavour. Season if required.
 6. To make the pies, preheat the oven to about 200 degrees.
 7. Line a pie dish with short crust pastry and pour the mixture into the dish
 8. Cover the top with either shortcrust or puff pastry and pinch the top and bottom together.
 9. Slice lines into the top of the pie with a sharp knife, and brush the top with the egg or milk. Use leftover pastry to create a heart design on top if you are a fancy pants like me! ;)
10. Put in oven for about 30- 45 minutes until golden and bubbling.
11. Dig in! ;)

Alternatively, make Cornish pasty style pies with no pie dish using either puff or shortcrust - yum :)

Planting the fruit cage

So we went to a plant auction at the weekend - expensive move!

However we are now the proud owners of 12 raspberry canes, 3 redcurrant bushes, 1 gooseberry bush, 2 tayberry plants, 2 blueberry plants, an apricot tree and a cherry tree - phew!

Bidding on them was fun, planting them all was hard work! However, the lovely boy and I managed to do the lot and put up the new polytunnel too!

(The fruit cage is yet to be purchased, I have seen a nice big one online, and so made the fruit bed the same size as the fruit cage just in anticipation that the bushes will grow big and be fruitful and need to be protected! ;)

Here is the rather lovely new polytunnel (which was a massive bargain!)

and here is the fruit bed/cage (when it arrives!) planted with all the lovely fruit bushes.

Fingers crossed for some lovely fruity treats this summer!

My little secrets:
Polytunnel: only £35 from eBay!
Fruit area, planted with weed barrier membrane covering the area - hoping this will make it much easier to maintain!

My very own Vegetable patch/ plot of heaven ;)

Well it is kind of obligatory, you have a house in the country you have to grow veggies... But more that this, I have been wanting a proper vegetable patch for as long as I can remember.

When I lived in smaller houses with tiny gardens I would grow them in amongst the flowerbeds, the tomatoes dwarfed the other plants and the sweetcorn - well that just looked ridiculous, so to have a dedicated patch to play with, tend, grow and experiment in really is my idea of heaven!

19 sleepers, 4 tonnes of soil and lots of sweat, blisters and a hot bath later, we created this:

 Above: taken first thing in the morning there is even a little frost on our lovely veggie patch!

My little secrets:

4 tonnes of soil: Have a very fit and lovely boy to shovel and move it all ;)

19 sleepers: Same as above!

Fixings: Fix the sleepers together with nail plates and long decking screws (Screwfix - good for next day delivery!) 

Sourcing these items: google search lots of places, don't dismiss those that are far away as they sometimes have local distribution points. Ask for a discount - it worked for me!