It’s Monday. After a busy weekend of looking after and feeding my sizeable family with sizeable appetites, I like to relax and catch up on some TV – something I rarely get to do over the weekend. YouTube gamers are an extremely familiar sight on my television during the weekend, oh the joys of being a mother of mainly boys! This morning I caught up on Friday’s episode of Eastenders (what the heck is up with Stuart!) and watched two episodes of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Anyway, on to my favourite topic – food! I cooked a Chicken Biryani last night for dinner, an intentional meal choice as it usually lasts two days. I just needed to make a little something to bulk up our dinner for today, and remembering that I had a packet of fresh puff pastry in the fridge, decided on a Chicken and Mushroom pie. FYI, I currently use Asda Ready Rolled Puff Pastry, which strangely lists ethanol as one of it’s ingredients on the Asda website but is not on the ingredient list on the back of the packaging. ‘Why is this important?’ I hear you ask. Well my friends, Muslims and products containing alcohol do not agree with each other (with exceptions of course).

So, once I’d decided on whatsa gonna be cooking, I thought I’d follow Jamie Oliver’s quick recipe for Chicken & Mushroom pie. Off I went to Lidl and Asda to pick up a few ingredients for my pie; namely chicken, mushrooms and crème fraîche. Guess what? I came home without mushrooms. Which is how my Chicken n Veg Pie was born.

So here you have it, the only useful part of this blog post – the recipe. Enjoy my beauties and I’ll catch you soon inshaAllah 🙂

Recipe for Chicken n Veg Pie

Serves 6 | Preparation Time: 5 minutes | Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 300g Chicken Breast (cubed)
• ~400g Frozen Veg (Broccoli, Carrots and Cauliflower)
• 1 Onion
• 1/4 cup Passata
• 1/4 cup Crème Fraîche
• 1/4 cup Plain Flour
• 1 tablespoon Sunflower Oil (or similar)
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Coarse Black Pepper
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
• 1/2 cup Water
• Egg Wash/Milk (to coat the pie)
• Ready Rolled Puff Pastry (One sheet)

(Don’t stress, your ingredients don’t have to match the above exactly, adjust to what you fancy or what’s available to you)

Method

• Preheat oven to Gas Mark 6/200°C/180°C Fan/392°F.
• Add the oil to a pan on medium/high heat.
• Chop/dice the onions, add to the pan and saute/brown the onions. (I over-sautéed my onions, pretty much burning them, which gave my filling a lovely brown colour mind you!)
• Add the chicken breast cubes, cooking on a medium heat until they change to a more white rather than pink colour (5-10 minutes).
• Add the salt, pepper and lemon to the pan, and stir into the chicken.
• Add the frozen veg and allow to cook for a further 5-10 minutes (or until the veg is cooked).
• Stir in the passata and water, bring to the boil and cook for a minute.
• Add the crème fraîche and plain flour, stirring in well to get rid of any lumps and creating a lovely thick sauce. Remove from heat.
• In a large oven dish/tray, add the chicken and veg filling. Top with the ready rolled puff pastry, tucking in any extra pastry (or cut it off if there’s too much excess).
• Coat with egg wash/milk.
• Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Serve and enjoy!