Cottage pies

Being retired, alone and free of commitments is really quite luxurious. It is one of the good things about growing old.

To wake up in a morning is always a great thing to happen, and to have a clean slate for the day, with no plans – can lead to all sorts of variants.

Maybe a drive to a town or village, visit friends, shops, do housework, gardening, read, compute. Every day is new.

So this morning, I planned to visit a friend to take the dogs walking, then we would have coffee somewhere.

First I went to town at 8.30 when Marks and Spencer opened just to buy some milk and tomatoes and the Yorkshire Post newspaper.

I didn’t need food because I cook in bulk and freeze single portions. The freezer is stocked with meals for the next couple of weeks. Lamb casseroles, vegetable bakes, and quiches.

Nevertheless as I passed the ready meals, I wondered about getting a couple of single sized cottage pies. I quickly decided not to – because last time I had one I wasn’t all that keen, and I left half of it.

However the thought of cottage pies was a trigger…. There was an offer of 3 packets of minced beef for £10.00, Righty-ho – into the trolley they go, packet of organic carrots, red onions, box of mushrooms, bunch of celery, 5 pounds of potatos, small pot of cream… and head for home by 9am.

I use massive pans for cooking. I put all 3 packs of meat into a very large wok, and proceeded to let it brown.

Meanwhile I cut up all the onions and put them in a large pan to braise, whilst I chopped all the pack of carrots and all the celery in the food processor to a small chunk size, then added them to the onions. I processed the mushrooms into smaller pieces and added them to the browning meat.

By 9.45 the meat was browned, and the vegetables softened.

I mixed the whole lot into a large stew pan, added herbs, toss of balsamic vinegar, mixed spice, salt and pepper, spoonful of Bovril and then put it into a very slow oven.

Forgot to mention that I put half the potatoes to bake in their jackets and peeled the other half to boil.

Turned the potatoes off, then went out for the walk with friend and we had a coffee.

Nice smell to come home to an hour later, and all cooked fine and tasting good.

Now to mash the potatoes. I have a great gadget for this

I should have taken a photo – but this is a retrospective account, I had no intentions this morning when I got up that I would even be cooking, never mind blogging about it!

Anyway I mashed both the boiled and baked potatos, added a bit of Shrophire blue cheese, knob of butter, salt and the small tub of cream. Delicious!!

I have a stock of small ovenware dishes for individual meals which I have had for years. I got about 30 maybe 15 years ago.

I made 16 cottage pies- well not true cottage pies, as they have lots of vegetables as well as meat. They are individually wrapped in freezer bags, and I put them in the freezer a couple of hours ago. I put a brief label with them and stapled the receipt from Marks and Spencers to remind me what I bought.

I kept one out of the freezer to eat tomorrow, and that is the potato masher in the picture too.

Bit sad I suppose that I have nothing more interesting to write about today. Ah well – I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.