Let's Eat Blog Hop

Hello! If you're new here and you've found me through the hop then welcome! I bet you had a great time at Mel's place, and I hope you'll enjoy reading about one of my favourite meals. If you're a regular visitor then I'm pleased to see you again, and I hope you like this foodie post.

To start with I'm going to take you back to when I was about 13, and being a difficult teenager by declaring myself a vegetarian. I can't remember what prompted this, it might have been that I was copying a friend, it might have been that I'd just re-read Daggie Dogfoot (a pig story by Dick King Smith), and decided I didn't want to be eating the characters I loved. Whatever it was, I was certain I was a vegetarian from then on.

It lasted about a week. My mum had been quite patient about me eating a lot of cheese sandwiches and veggie pizza etc, but then one night she forgot (that's her story and she's sticking with it), and she cooked my favourite meal. I smelt it cooking from my bedroom, and stomped down to the kitchen to rant at her. My wonderful mum didn't pack me off to my bedroom for being ungrateful, like she probably should have, but instead she offered to cook me something different. But it was too late by then. My mouth was watering from the scent of it, and I knew I didn't have the willpower to turn it down. I really admire anyone who is a vegetarian, as I've tried again since then and something always tempts me back to meat eating.

Anyway, here it is, that tempting meal that threw me back into carnivore status:

Sheperds Pie with Baked Beans

Now, firstly I should point out that this meal uses beef mince, not lamb, and so some people might be confused at it being called Sheperds pie instead of Cottage pie. But I've never called it Cottage pie in my life, so I won't start now!

Ingredients:

-600g White Potatoes
-250g Beef Mince Meat
-Half of a 420g tin of Baked Beans
-One small white cooking onion (optional)
-Large Knob of Butter
-Dash of Milk
-Olive oil
-Pinch of Salt
-Cracked Black Pepper
-Bisto Gravy (150ml)
-Pinch of Salt
-Worcestershire Sauce

Utensils:

-Large Saucepan
-Frying Pan
-Pyrex Dish (big enough to hold at least 2 pints of water—test with a jug)
-Kettle
-Spatula, masher, & large spoon with no slots (to dish up)
-Slotted Spoon
-Jug for Gravy

To Cook:

Fill a large saucepan with water and put it onto boil (on high heat).

Peel and chop potatoes for mash, put them into the saucepan once it's boiling. Put a frying pan on a medium heat hob. Add a small dollop of oil.

Once the frying pan is hot start cooking the mince, using a spatula to break it up. If you are using an onion you can chop this up and add it when the meat is broken up and starting to take a little colour.

Turn on the oven to 200 degrees C to warm up. Don’t forget to stir the spuds.

Make sure the mince is cooked through. There should be no big lumps and it should all now be grey/brown in colour (ie. Not pink). Take it off the heat and transfer to the pyrex dish. If trying to make it healthy you can drain off the excess fat first.

When the potatoes are done take them off the heat and drain.

Boil the kettle. When boiled mix approx 150ml (a quarter of a pint) of bisto gravy - mix it gently with a fork whilst you pour the kettle so you don’t get lumps, mix faster once you’ve put the kettle down until all the granules disappear.

Mix the baked beans with the mince (and onion if using) in the pyrex dish (if the beans have a lot of sauce drain some off first.)

Mix gravy into beans and mince. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and a glug of worcestershire sauce.

Mash the potatoes with a large knob of butter and a little milk (or olive oil if you prefer). Also a pinch of salt and pepper.

Now add the mash in dollops to the top of the mince mixture. Try to do it evenly otherwise you’ll have more mash at one end and the gravy will ooze out the other.

Press down gently to fill in the holes but leave it uneven on top so that you get crispy bits. Your pie will crisp up better if the mash is right at the top edge of your dish, but don't worry if it's not (mine isn't usually).

Put it in the oven on the middle or top shelf, and leave to cook for 20-30 mins. You may want to put a baking tray on the shelf underneath, to catch any gravy that oozes out, mine often does. Also, if you want to give the mash extra crispyness on top you could grill it for a couple of mins at the end, but watch closely so it doesn't burn.

Dish it up, and serve with bread and butter, and/or peas and carrots.

Note: This is for 2 greedy people! It will easily serve 3, maybe even four if you're cooking vegetables with it. Or you could save some and re-heat in the microwave the next day. Also: If you want to increase the recipe for more people you can just add more ingredients (eg. 2 x ingredients for 4 people, 3 x ingredients for 6 people etc, but you will need a bigger pyrex dish, or 2 dishes. This will also increase the oven cooking time, if using 2 dishes it will increase by 5-10mins, if using a bigger dish 15-30mins extra. Just keep checking it!

Hope you don't mind that my recipe is quite rustic. I know baked beans aren't to everyone's taste but I love them!

Your next stop along the blog hop trail is Liberty Cottage. Have a great time! If you get lost anywhere along the way, then head back to Amy's for a list of all the blogs taking part. xxx

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art journal page, a sweetie boot, & kids halloween, what a mix!

As promised, the first thing I have to show you is an art journal page (a double spread) that I made following week one's lesson of Art, Heart and Healing:

The left page was therapeutic - writing down negative thoughts and then covering them with layer on layer of prettiness, finally adding a sentence of how to use those negative thoughts positively.

My negative thoughts were all about worrying that I'm not a good enough mum, wife, friend, artist etc, because I feel I try to do too much to make any of it perfect. I decided my negative thoughts are trying to tell me that if I want to try and balance these things, then I need to stop stressing about them all being faultless. It doesn't matter if my daughter sometimes watches more TV than I'd like so that I can cook the dinner, and if I want to spend an evening watching telly with hubby then I shouldn't stress about not getting an online challenge done that I'd wanted to do. This is a message that I knew already really, but hopefully having an art journal page to remind me will help me be strong about it:

The right hand page is sort of a self-portrait - one that doesn't necessarily look like me, but is supposed to represent me. It must look like me a little bit, because when I showed it to my daughter she said 'it's mummy!'. Tam suggested we should take a word that sums up the positive move forward and write it on the portrait somewhere, so I chose 'balance' - you can just about see it between the collarbones:

I loved creating this page. The lesson was a video with Tam talking you though all the steps, and it gave me real confidence with shading and building up layers. It was also great to finally get use out of some watercolour pencils my mum bought me years ago (thanks mum!) but which had been sitting in the bottom of a cupboard. Now I want some more! If you'd like to give the class a go, you can still join up and see this lesson. The course is free, you just have to sign up to Tam's ning site (also free). Go to http://www.willowing.ning.com/.

Next up tonight is an item inspired by the Paper Variety blog - their challenge this week is to create a project that incorperates candy or other sweet treats. So I made this:

My husband lived in Germany until he was 6 years old. He doesn't remember huge amounts from living over there, just because he was quite young when the family moved back to England, but every December he reminisces about St. Nicholas Day on the 6th of December, when german children wake up to a boot stuffed with sweets, nuts or fruit. I'm not sure if this is a tradition in other countries too? I'd never heard of it before I met him anyway.

Every year I mean to make him a boot to stick some sweeties in (I certainly wouldn't want to just put sweets in his smelly shoes!), and this Paper Variety challenge has given me the push to finally make one, after 10 years together!

I made it by sticking together some loo roll inner tubes onto a base cut from a cereal packet:

And then I used modge-podge to stick xmas papers and tissue papers all over it. I chose blue papers because that's my hubby's fave colour. I also stamped and stuck on the tag saying 'St. Nick's Day' placing it so it looked a bit like a boot tongue. I used Copydex to glue silver laces on too:

Finally I used glamour dust to glitter the toe of the boot and the top rim:

Now I just have to try and remember to actually fill it with sweets and leave it for him to find on the morning of the 6th. I bet I'll be posting on the 7th of Dec saying 'arrgghh, I forgot!'. If you want to join in with the Paper Variety Challenge you can see it here.

Okay, a last couple of pics to show you (thank you if you're still with me!). This morning I read the lovely Rachel's latest blog post, with some kiddies halloween crafts she'd been making with her son. I was inspired, so today me and little miss have made these:

Fun eh? I think my daughter enjoyed making them, though she wasn't too sure about painting her hand white until I did mine first. She has a bit of a fear of getting her hands sticky. I love the faces she's created on the ghosts, especially the one with freaky green and brown pupils! Thank you Rachel for giving me the ideas!

Right, that really is it. Until tomorrow morning when I'll be back with my recipe as part of the Let's Eat Blog Hop. Sorry if you're getting sick of me! xx

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Latest DT project

Hello all!

My latest DT project is up on the Fiskarettes blog. I created this layout with a photo taken around christmas time last year:

My favourite bit of this layout is the masking tape - it was normal white masking tape until I painted, stamped, and coloured it, and I love how it turned out:

If you want to see more details, including materials used, you can see the project on the Fiskarettes blog here.

This week has been a little more manic than I anticipated, especially as I'd forgotten about Tam's class starting (Art, Heart and Healing - see button on right sidebar). But more on that tomorrow - I'll show you the Art journal page I've made from her first class.

I'll also be here early Sunday morning as part of this blog hop:

Which is being organised by the lovely Amy from Over at Our Place. I'll be sharing with you a simple recipe that I've loved since I was young, so check back on Sunday to read that, and to hop through the other delactable offerings across the blogosphere.

Night night! xx

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