Meat Salad

Starting the week as I intended to continue I pulled three blocks of pastry out of my freezer. I love having hunks of frozen pastry lying in wait for me; it makes me feel far more organised and competent than is strictly deserved.

Veal and ham pie. I must admit I didn’t actually use veal, it turns out that I’m not made of money. I used some left over roast beef which I figured was close enough? This was an unusual pie – take a casserole dish, place cooked veal (beef) in, add rolls of ham, quartered boiled eggs and forcemeat balls. Add a little stock. Cover with pastry, cook for 45 minutes.

Unusual but quite tasty. It was sort of like a meat salad with pastry. A good use of leftovers although we are not generally a household with a lot of leftovers.

Fruit squares – grated apple, currants and sultanas encased in pastry. Not the sort of thing that tickles my fancy what with being a raisin hater at all – yes that does include sultanas, in fact they are even worse. I did hear from my appreciative audience that they were up to my usual high standard. Or something like that anyway!

Eccles cakes – Now my father was born in Eccles so I feel I should have some connection to these. Firstly I was disappointed to find that they are not really cakes, they are actually small pastry. Secondly they are full of the evil raisins smaller cousin the currant. Truth be told I actually don’t mind a currant, I wouldn’t say I was partial but I’m strongly indifferent if that’s possible.

I did try an Eccles cake, I wouldn’t write home about it but I am at home writing about it so I suppose that’s something