Ed is pie fan in chief in the Fuss Free household, so when the review copy of Pieminister a pie for all seasons arrived, I handed it over to him for testing and review.

As Thomas Edward Brown might, or possibly even should have said, “a pie is a lovesome thing, God wot!” There really is no greater example of winter comfort food, and now Tristan Hogg and Jon Simon, the originators of the Pieminister shops have decided to spread the word beyond their retail outlets and publish a book of pie recipes.

The layout is straightforward – a guide to the various types of pastry used, essential pie making skills, and then onto the pie recipes, divided seasonally. Unsurprisingly, the format has savoury pies at the start of each chapter, and sweet at the end. The layout and the design is clear, which a single large photo of each pie, and the usual ingredient list alongside the cooking instructions; the vital information you need isn’t lost in overworked design, but there is an underlying blokeyness to the typeface and layout.

After starting with more usual offerings, its not long before the suggestions veer off piste (off pie-ste?) so, for example, in the Spring chapter, we move from a chicken, cider and leek pie to a red pepper and butter bean ‘bada boom’.

As with all cook books, there are recipes that leap off the page the moment you see the name. The smoked aubergine and olive strudel looks enticing, as does the fig tarte tatin with pistachios, a pulled pork, cider and sage pie, and a ‘plumble’, a mulled wine and plum crumble. We cooked a chicken pie from the book, finding the recipe easy to follow and the results to be excellent. There really, really is nothing quite like a home made pie.

Obviously, a book just about pies does restrict the authors somewhat, and therefore the authors do stretch the definition of what is a pie somewhat, but it’s no worse for that. As a source of reference recipes for beef, chicken and fish pie recipes, the book is certainly useful, and the more esoteric offerings definitely start me thinking about pie possibilities.

Fuss Free Star Rating ***

Recipe: Lucky Ducky Pies from Pieminister

Serves 4

50g butter
3 shallots, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
¼ small red cabbage (about 150g), shredded
2 tbsp cider vinegar
150ml dry cider
2 tbsp demerara sugar
2 star anise
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 Williams pears, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
2 confit duck legs (available in delis and some supermarkets), shredded
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the topping

500g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
50g butter
100ml double cream

Melt the butter in a pan, add the shallots and cook gently for 4–5 minutes, until lightly coloured. Stir in the garlic and red cabbage, then add the vinegar, cider, sugar, star anise and cinnamon. Bring to a simmer and cook over a medium heat for 20–25 minutes, until the butter and sugar start to caramelise the cabbage and the liquid reduces to a glaze. Season with salt and pepper, add the pears and cook for about 5 minutes, until they are just tender but still holding their shape.

Remove the skin from the confit duck legs but don’t throw it away! If you put it in the oven to crisp up while the pie is baking, it makes a delicious nibble. Shred the duck meat into the cabbage and then transfer the mixture to 4 individual pie dishes. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

For the topping, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender, then drain well. Mash with the butter and cream and season to taste. Top the pies with the mashed potato, place in the oven and bake for 20–25 minutes, until golden. Delicious served with peas and carrots.

Recipe reproduced with permission from Pieminister.

See more content from the book here.

Pieminister is published by Bantam Press, £17.99. Available from Amazon and all bookshops.

Thank you for my review copy.

This recipe is my nod to Halloween.  I’m currently in France and this post was written several days ago and scheduled!  Such is the wonder of blog software I can work ahead of time and no one is any the wiser as to my whereabouts.

Looking though the archives it seems that I last blogged about gnocchi over two years ago, in June 2009, when I made tofu gnocchi, and very good they were too.   I am surprised that I have not made them since.

Potato gnocchi (the more times I type it the more convinced I am that I am spelling gnocchi wrongly) is all very nice, but a little boring, so I made this batch with a mix of about 50% spud and 50% butternut squash.   You could use the innards of your Halloween pumpkin too.      Do not throw the seeds away, give them a good wash and pick out all the fibrous bits and roast in olive oil with pepper, salt and some spices until golden and crispy.   Pumpkin seeds are meant to be an appetite suppressant, a good thing if you are a food writer like me and also enjoying your work a little too much.

Roasting will improve many vegetables, especially pumpkins, squash and root veggies.    Water will be lost, concentrating the flavour, and carbohydrates will be caramalised making them sweeter.  Yum!

Most of the time I use Steenbergs spices, they are organic and Fairtrade, great quality with fantastic deep flavours, Sophie Steenberg is also Ed’s cousin.   Their rose harissa is fantastic, the label is not joking when it says “bitingly hot”.   I love the extra flora note that the rose gives, and far prefer a tin of ground spice, that can be kept in the cupboard, over pastes that need to live in the fridge once opened.

I suspect that these gnocchi will work equally well with a mix of any root vegetable, pumpkin or squash, use what you have, there really are no recipe rules or recipe police here.

I learnt the piping bag trick from Mardi, using one, or just a zip lock bag with the corner snipped off, will make making gnocchi a far easier, quicker and infinitely less messy and sticky experience that you are more likely to repeat.   Which you will want to, as homemade are infinitely nicer than shop bought.  Pipe out any leftover batter onto a silicon mat and freeze, then drop into boiling water to cook from frozen.

One word, when slow frying the onions it is very very easy to keep adding more and more butter and oil.    I think that both are delicious, but if you have never done so take the time to measure out 1 oz of butter and 1 oz of oil.  An ounce of butter contains 184 calories, olive oil 225, with both this is a relatively small amount.   I usually add a little of the pasta cooking water to a sauce,

Recipe: Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sticky Harissa Onions

Serves 4

1 small butternut squash
About 3 or 4 medium potatoes
6 oz / 150g plain flour
1 large onion
25g / 1 oz / 1 tbs olive oil
25g / 1 oz / 1 tbs butter
1 tsp Harissa powder or paste
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut the squash into 5cm / 2″cubes.   Drizzle with a little oil, season with salt and pepper and roast at 180C / 350F / GM4 for about 30 to 40 minutes until soft and starting to brown.

Slice the onion thinly and slowly fry with the harissa in the oil and butter.  You need to do this over a very gentle heat, so you drive off the water and the onion becomes sweet and sticky rather than browned.   I find this impossible to do without burning the onions unless I use a heat diffuser.  This should take about 30 to 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and boil the potatoes.  When done drain and add the cooked squash, mash or pass through a potato ricer and stir in the flour.   Add more flour if needed, yo will nedd about 150g for 750g cooked vegetables.   The mixture will be sticky, but should come together into a solid lump.

With floured hands roll into sausages and cut into bit sized pieces.  Or, as will be far easier dollop it into a piping, or strong plastic bag and snip the corner off and pip directly into a pan of boiling water.

Cook the gnocchi in a large pan of boiling water, allow gnocchi to boil for a minute or two after rising to the surface of the pan.    Scoop with a slotted spoon and drain on a tea towel or kitchen paper.

Serve topped with the slow cooked harissa onions.

We washed it down with a rather good bottle of Morrison’s The Best Valpolicella, 2008 that really stood up quite well to the heat of the harissa.

Thanks to Morrisons for the wine.

I am sending this to Ren’s Simple and in Season and Presto Pasta Nights.

Sometimes it is the cheapest bits of kitchen kit that are the best, and a fantastic example is the Quickachips mesh tray. 

The Quickachips tray quite simply a mesh tray that you can cook on.  Designed for oven chips, but there are also flat meshes available perfect for pizza or  pastry.  By cooking on the mesh you are forced to use barely any fat, and air can circulate resulting in crisper chips that cook quickly.   Other root vegetable chips cook as well as potatoes and I am especially delighted to have found a delicious and healthy way to use up all my swedes from my fruit and vegetable co-op.

To use simple peel your vegetables and cut into chips, place in a bowl pour a tiny amount of oil over, add some seasoning (I used a pinch of chilli powder and salt and pepper), give the bowl a good shake to coat the chips and pour onto the mesh and roast for about 40 mins at GM6 / 200C.   For even speedier chips boil for two minutes before draining and adding oil and seasoning and cook for about 25 to 30 minutes.

I am astonished at just how good the chips are, with crispy outside whilst  soft and fluffy inside,  and delighted at how healthy they are with such a fantastic value for money piece of kit.  Also dishwasher proof, a must for me!  The chips were just as good  as any from the far more expensive low fat fryer.

Quickachips trays are available from Planit Products priced £1.99 to £3.99 with free P&P on orders of above £3.

Thanks to to Toastabags for my free review samples.

Along with lots of other bloggers I was recently sent a coolbag crammed full with Total Greek yogurt, which I have greatly been enjoying using and cooking with.    It is still baking hot in London and I really do not want to spend hours slaving over a hot stove so I have been spending the minimal amount of time in the kitchen.   Tuesday is co-op day and this week my bag contained some beautiful new potatoes which needed to be made into a salad.    Instead of the usual mayonnaise I used some 0% fat Total and added cucumber and mint from my window box* to make a refreshing lunch.

This is another contribution to my series of easy, economical and healthy recipes of what to do with the contents of the co-op “boxes” for the Food Co-ops and Buying Groups project run by Sustain – also part of the Making Local Food Work programme funded by the Big Lottery.

*I am not a gardener and have to have an alarm on my phone to remind me to water my herbs, but mint seems pretty hard to kill, it seems to thrive on neglect and actually needs a very good prune on a regular basis so it does not turn into a triffid.   If I can grow mint on a window sill in central London I defy anyone not to be able to grow it anywhere.

Potato, Cucumber and Mint Salad

Handful baby new potatoes
Chunk of cucumber
Greek Yogurt (I used Total 0%)
Sprig of mint – roughly chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste

Remove any dirt and mud by gently scrubing the potatoes (but try to keep the skin on, it contains most of the nutrients and taste).  Pop them in a pan and simmer until done.    When cooked drain and slice thickly.   Whilst the spuds are cooking chop the cucumber into 1/2″ chunks.   Put a dollop of yogurt into your salad bowl (I thinned mine with a splash of water as it was very thick).  Add the cucumber, mint (reserving a little for garnish)  and season.  Allow the potatoes to cool a little then stir into the salad.  Garnish with the remining mint.    Enjoy warm or chilled.

Thanks to Total for the free product samples.

I have a huge amount of love for smoked & tinned fish, it is delicious, cheap and when sealed in its packet keeps well for several weeks.    I buy my smoked and tinned fish from Waitrose as all their fish is sustainable and certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a cool bag packed with Total Greek Yoghurt much of it has gone into breakfast smoothies, but I used one last pot in this gratin.

If you are gentle with it Greek yoghurt should not split if you cook with it.  I find that it occassionally does spilt, especially if you are mixing it with lemon juice, but it still tastes delicious and has the huge advantage in being considerable lower in fat than cream – I used the 2% Total in this dish,  single cream has a fat content of 18% – by my maths that is 9 Greek yoghurt gratins for the price of one creamy one, it is not even close to a fair fight!

We both enjoyed this and it is firmly on the to make again list.  Next time I will probably not put spinach in the gratin as it made it too watery and my caper obsessed mind is telling my that capers would would well stirred into the gratin too.
Smoked Mackerel Gratin (serves 2)

10oz / 225g potatoes
2 smoked mackerel fillets – skin removed and roughly chopped
150g pot 2% Greek yoghurt
1 tbs grain mustard
Sprinkling of cheese
Pepper & salt to taste
Olive Oil
Spinach leaves

Par boil the potatoes – I used salad potatoes and did not bother to peel them.     Heat the oven to 375F / 190C / GM5.   Glug some olive oil into an oven proof dish.   Add a handful of spinach then the mackerel.     Stir the mustard into the yoghurt then spread over the mish and spinach.   Drain and slice the potatoes, arrange on top of the yoghurt.    Grate some strong cheese over – I used some aged Gouda that was delicious, season with salt and pepper.    Bake until bubbling and the cheesey potatoes are turning golden.     Serve with extra spinach.