Another song and some food-y thoughts.

My friends and I have started up a tradition of cooking meals for each other, in lieu of all of us spending a lot of money going out to eat, and it's working out quite well! Elif has prepared us all two very nice dishes, one with a kind of sweet sauce and another with enough curry in it to make me swoon with delight. Mike has prepared alfredo once already, and a few nights ago prepared us another noodle bake that was quite good. So now, it's my turn to sort something out in the kitchen.

I know. Duck and cover, right?

Anyway, I was originally thinking about cooking my mother's outstanding spaghetti recipe, but have since decided that that might be a little messier than I'm prepared to deal with. Instead I'd like to try something else--something different--and I've decided to try baking pasties.

Pasties, for those of you not in The Know, are a delicious, mostly English dish (I guess you can call them a dish anyway) that are essentially composed of a scrumptious stew enclosed within a pastry. Have some visuals:

Thank you, Google!

Anyway, I've been sorting through various different recipes trying to find one that appeals to me. Most of them include pork, which I'm not a big fan of, so I think I'll have to experiment a bit to get the taste I like. Fortunately, I've got my very own (unsuspecting) guinea pig for these experiments living with me here in Kringsjå... so if Tim manages to not die and survives the meal, then I'll give it to the rest of my friends! :D

Here's the recipe I think I've settled on at long last, taken from this page of pasty recipes:

"This recipe makes 10 pasties.

Put about 12 oz filling in each crust.

Dough:
3 1/2 flour
9 oz shortening
10 oz cold water
1TBl+1 tsp salt

Filling:
3 1/2# potatoes,peeled
1 1/2# coarse ground pork
12 oz coarse ground beef
9 oz diced onions
8 oz diced carrots
7 oz diced rutabaga
1/4# butter
1TBl salt
1Tbl pepper

Chop the carrots and onions. Dice the potatoes and rutabagas in a 3/8-inch dice. Mix all the filling ingredients together and set aside. Mix the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening, as for pie crust. Add the water and mix gently just until the dry particles are absorbed; do not over mix.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.On a floured surface, roll 4-ounce balls of dough into circles about the size of a dinner plate. Put about 12 ounces of filling on one half. Dampen the edges, fold crust over filling, and seal.Place on greased baking sheets (or use baking paper). Place in oven and bake for one hour. Serve with either catsup or gravy."

Tasty-lookin', eh?

Now, have some Decemberists. This definitely tops my list of favorite songs by them ever, and this live performance is, I think, better than what's on the album.

If you're reading this entry from Facebook, make sure you view the original blog post in order to see the video.

Hadet bra!