Chicken & Vegetable Pies

Ok, so a 34°C day wasn't the best scenario to make pies. Not reading the recipe all the way through properly since having seen it the first time wasn't a bright idea either. Consquently, I had no chicken stock or tarragon, and no wine (not that I'd had used that anyway though).

And I only started 45 mins before dinner was due. Needless to say, dinner was late. By almost over an hour. But it was worth the wait. and since we only ate half the pies, I get to freeze some before I have to melt in the kitchen again.

It really wasn't that hard though. I just should have either made the filling last night, or not started preheating the oven till the filling was done. Our oven is fanforced, so that meant the entire time I was frying and stirring, I had 200°C air blasting at the top of my legs - like I wasn't hot enough!

On the plus side, my frozen puff pastry defrosted without a problem. On the minus side, it got far too hot by the time I needed it, and I had to very carefully coax it into pies, without it falling apart and stretching to nothing.

But, miracle of miracles, the oven forgave me all this, and somehow managed to produce some lovely pies. The overstretched, misshapen blobs I placed in, came out as lovely, puffed, flaky, rustic looking pies. Of course, everyone was starving by the time they were done, but since they were so piping hot, we still had time to admire them a bit before eating.



Finished off with a bowlful of homemade strawberry and passionfruit ice creams, I think for once my family got a great meal.