Elephant Pie

My oh so cunning plan to cook my way through our cook books has had a side effect.  I've started borrowing more cookbooks from the library, and in doing so, discovered a few more must haves.  I'm still searching most passing charity shops for the now out of print River Cottage Family Cookbook, but my latest acquisition is more recent (a result of a catalogue search for cooking sorted by new releases), and was half price in Smiths.

I never got into The Great British Bake Off on telly; it seemed a little too X-factor, a little less Masterchef, but the book, ah, the book!

I genuinely could start at one end and work my way to the other, at which point we would be somewhat larger than we originally started and probably craving a strict diet of celery sticks and raw broccoli.  I'm going to have to eek it out over a few years.

I made a cake (and wrote about it here), and tonight, I made the recipe that convinced us that we needed to own the book, Somerset Pork and Apple Pie.



I say make, I should really say finish, for this is not a quick and easy supper sort of a recipe.  The pastry had four separate rollings out with fridge and resting times in between, and the filling stewed gently in the oven for two hours late yesterday afternoon (and set in motion the quirk in our oven that trips the fuses, plunging Kitty and I into darkness at that somewhat trying time of after snack but before tea.  She was not impressed when Mama abandoned her in her travel cot playpen to furret in the study cupboard for the fuse box).



This evening, I simply poured the filling into the pie dish, rolled the pastry out to cover it, cut out small baby elephants with the leftovers, and baked it.  If anything it tasted even nicer than last time thanks to the extra resting.

Lest you fear that the current swing of blog posts towards the strictly culinary is a hallmark of things to come, be not afraid, it's not. It's simply the hallmark of two things happening in my crafty life. 

One: my sewing room/studio, which is frequently used as a general dumping ground for things that for one reason or another do not yet have a permanent home, had become rather less 'overflowing with inspiration' and rather more 'overwhelming with overflow'.  I've spent two evenings tidying and I'm 3/4 of the way through.  It's starting to feel bigger though which is always a good thing, particularly as I need the floor space to do some blocking.

Two: I've knit ____ for ______ and finished ______ for _______.  I've just cast on ______ but had to rip back because the yarn was overwhelming the pattern.  Yes, it's that time again.  Come back in the New Year for a whole barrow load of finished knitting.  I hope.