Seven Across

Steak and Kidney Pie Filling

There's a huge trend for cupcakes and other fancy bakery treats at the moment, and likewise there is a multitude of blogs dedicated to their creation and delectation. Since my blog is a blog about nothing in particular, and I'm a wee bit fed up of these I would like to share my method for making steak and kidney pie. I'm not a big lover of steak and kidney pudding as I adore hot, golden shortcrust pastry; this is possibly a throwback from spending a lot of time at my grandmother's house, where she had a range in the kitchen which not only cooked the food, but heated the house and the hot water. She was a prolific baker and constantly had something cooking in the oven.

I don't buy meat from the supermarket as I am fortunate to live near to a good butchers shop which supplies high quality meat at a reasonable price, with good service as an added bonus. I bought 2lbs (just under 1 kilo) of diced beef steak and kidney - this will be enough for 1 large pie (serves 4-6) or 2 small pies (serves 2-3) . My butcher sells this 'ready mixed' in equal proportions, and they are happy to give you a bit more kidney or steak ratio as you wish. If you're buying your meat from a supermarket or a butcher who does not sell a mix, then buy equal quantities of diced beef for stewing, and lamb's kidneys.

As well as the meat, you will need half an onion, half a stick of celery, some relish (Worcestershire Sauce or Henderson's Relish, for example), a stock cube, beer (bitter or ale - I use Spitfire, since that is my drink of choice) sage, cornflour, oil for frying and hot water. You will also need ingredients for the pastry. For argument's sake, I will assume that you, dear reader, can make pastry, but if you are unsure, please check out this methodology from Delia Smith.

Since I use a slow cooker, as well as the oven for my method, allow yourself a good 6 hours from walking through the kitchen door to putting the finished pie on the dining table.

First of all, turn on the slow cooker and turn to the high setting, and assemble the ingredients for the filling. Boil half a kettle full of water so that you will have warm water to add to your cooker once the meat is browned. Finely chop the the celery and the onion, and soften over a medium heat in a frying pan using a fat of your choice (I use a bit of lard, since it's going in the pastry anyway).

While the onions and celery are softening, you can tend to your kidneys. The fat and gristle from the middle of the kidney should be removed with a sharp paring knife or kitchen scissors as it does not add to the dish. Although kidneys were often soaked in milk, this practice was done to improve the flavour of pig's kidneys, but since lamb's kidneys are used the flavour is not as over-powering. If there are any large pieces of fat on the steak, remove these too.

Once the onions and celery have softened, place them in the slow cooker. Increase the heat for the frying pan so that you can brown the meat - I only brown the steak, I don't think the kidney's benefit a great deal from the process. The browning of the steak is not done to seal the meat but to increase the flavour of the finished dish. With the heat quite high, brown the steak in small batches - about a handful at a time, since putting too much meat in at once cools down the pan and the meat will not brown as efficiently.

Place the cooked meat in the slow cooker, and then add the trimmed kidneys. Now take your beer and add about 150mls to the hot pan and using a wooden spatula, scrape all the browned remnants of meat from the pan's base - watch the beer as it fizzles a bit when you pour it in the pan - this stage should only take half a minute or the beer will evaporate - if it does start to disappear too quickly add a bit of the water from the kettle. Now pour this into the slow cooker with the meat, and then add the pre-boiled water so that it just covers the meat and add a teaspoon of dried sage.

Right, once you make your pastry, you can do what you like for about 4 - 6 hours while the meat simmers away. You can keep checking periodically but avoid the temptation to stir too much. After 4 hours, take a bit of steak out of the pot and check the texture - it should pull apart nicely, and not be tough or chewy; if it's still a little 'bouncey' then leave to cook for a little longer depending on your slow cooker. Once you are satisfied with the tenderness of the meat, remove it from the cooker using a slotted spoon and place it in a dish. You want it to cool a little since the pastry will sag a little if it placed straight onto hot meat. You will be left with a nice gravy in the bottom of the slow cooker, but it will probably need a bit of a thickening. Now you have two choices - add a stock cube and some cornflower (sorry, if this is called something else in the USA, I don't know!) or you can add some gravy granules. I know this may seem like a bit of a cop-out after everything you've done so far, but gravy granules are just stock and flour anyway. If you're going to use stock and corn flower, crumble the stock cube into the liquid, then mix two teaspoons of cornflower with a little water and gradually add to the liquid, stirring all the time while it thickens. Same goes for the granules, add as much as you need to give you a reasonably thick gravy.

That's it now - steak and kidney pie filling, so you can pop it in your pie dish which has been lined with pastry, add.the meat and a little of the gravy, plonk the pastry lid on, and bang it in the oven!

The filling will freeze; allow it to cool a little before freezing and defrost overnight before cooking as y.ou would with the fresh filling.

repairing an old door frame or jamb

I live in a pretty old house, and it still has a few original internal features left. Unfortunately, since the house probably over 100 years old, not everything is in peak condition. The door between the living room and the dinning room was hanging quite badly, and since tightening the screws in the hinge didn't fix the problem of the door dragging on the carpet, further action needed to be taken.

As you can see, the screw holes are rather large and the wood is split and splintered. Attempts to patch up the holes had already been made, so I had to remove all the old bits of wood and remaining screws.

Next was a trip to B&Q to buy some 9mm and 6mm doweling to allow me to patch up the holes. Using a small knife I whittled a little of the bottom of the doweling to allow it fit snugly into the holes, then marked the doweling with a pen so that I could saw it make exact fitting pegs

The dowels which I cut were then liberally doused with wood glue, popped into the holes and tapped into place with a hammer. I left the glue over night to dry.

Next came round one of the wood filler, applied with a small trowel (or whatever, I think you could get away with using a clean table knife if you didn't have a spatula or trowel), which was left to dry for about 12 hours before applying level two

Then came the second layer of wood filler, which was left to dry over night and then sanded down. The big test came when

I screwed the hinge back in palce - surprisingly (for me) the door fitted back in the frame and has been sat happily opening and closing for well over 3 weeks now.

I'm quite impressed with my attempt to fix something... maybe I'll change the washer in the bathroom tap next

Picasa

I went for a little walk on Sunday with my camera, just to see what would look photogenic in the early evening sunglight. I took a few macro shots, nothing that really stands out, but things that were representative of the season. When I got home I thought my pictures were ok, but nothing outstanding, but they'd look ok as a collage. I have been using Raw Therapee to view and edit my photos, or if I'm doing HDR, then I'm it's been Photomatix, but both bits of software focus on the fine details of your photographs, rather than applying jazzy special effects. When I bought my last desktop pc in 2001, a copy of Microsoft Picture It!, however Microsoft have discontinued their range of digital image suite products and my copy of Picture It would not load on my new laptop, as my OS is Windows Vista. Picture It! was no substitute for Photoshop in the depth of its feature, but it did have many good basic editing tools such as edging tools to create a nice border, shading, softening and clone-stamping; so, I was quite peeved to find it was no more, and I might have to fork out £££s for Photoshop.

I had heard of Picasa, while searching for my raw-editing software when I purchase my new Sony A240 DSLR, as my former FinePix software would not support my new images. Making my collage was realively simple - a case of adding the photgraphs to from your file to a tray, then moving them into the base. You can then roate, resize and, if you choose, randomly shuffle the pictures. The addition of a 'back' option would be nice, as if you are like me, and can't help but the think the next shuffle will be just that tinsy bit better than the last... well, I'm sure you understand that the grass isn't always greener.

Well, I think I'm quite happy with my wee collage, and I hope to improve on my technique as time goes by.

Poem

Oh dear, I have been very lax indeed. Nearly a year since my last post, but, I suppose anything is better than nothing, so we'll see how it goes and I'll try again. I heard this poem on the radio this afternoon as I was driving home - I looked it up on the net so I would be able to re-post, but it struck me that hearing the poem being read evokes much greater emotion and feeling than reading it from a screen. Maybe you could read this aloud to someone, give them a little twist of thought that they would not otherwise have in their day.

O why do you walk through the field in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves?
Why do you walk through the field in gloves
When the grass is as soft as the breast of doves?
And shivering sweet to the touch
O why do you walk through the field in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?

It would be rude of me not to credit the author, so here's a link in case you would like a little more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Cornford

Name of the Iris

See, I lied. Maybe you'll learn not to trust me. I said I'd try to be regular, and then didn't post again for months.

But, to my point. My next door neighbour is 89 years old and she's called Lilly; the little girl who lives in the house on the opposite side of the road will be 2 in January and she is also called Lilly along with about twenty percent of the other pre-school girls in a 2 mile radius. Doubtless Lilly junior's mum didn't look out of there window one day and see the wizzend, half-blind Lilly senior, her stooped frame wrapped in a pinny and support stockings, and think 'Aw, bless, int she a proper owd love' and shout to Lilly junior's dad 'Ere, Dave, if we're avin a girl, lets call her after Mrs Dawson'.

Names obviously drop into and out of fashion over the years, with Lilly now being extremely popular in my little corner of the world - the 8th most popular girl's name in the UK in 2008, in fact. I like to think I can spot trends far in advance so I'm going to have a punt on 'Iris' entering the fashion name charts in the next 5 years or so. I can see the trend ...floral... ...girlie... ...nod to the past... and we have the celeb endorsement because Mel B has given her second daughter Iris as a middle name. Pity http://nametrends.net/ only covers the USA, because it is good for wasting a good hour or so looking at how baby names have fallen in an out of fashion. I'm glad I have cats... Felix is timeless