POTATOES - VERSATILE, EASY AND DELICIOUS

If like me you are always feeding hungry teenagers, then potatoes are a godsend. Easy to prepare and they can be used in so many different ways - baked, chipped, boiled, mashed....but sometimes when I look in the fridge there appears to only be a boring mixture of ingredients, so I started to look for a different way to use up potatoes and vegetables at the end of the week and this is one of the recipes I came up with.

Potato pastry pie with leeks and mushrooms

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry - you need to make your own, so a standard recipe is twice the amount of plain flour to butter/margarine, but with this recipe you substitute half of the flour with mashed potato. So 4 oz flour, 4oz mashed potato and 4oz butter/margarine

Leeks - three good sized
Mushrooms - 6 to 8 oz
Cream cheese or mascarpone - three/four large tablespoons
Seasoning to taste

Method

This is a great recipe for using up mashed potato leftovers, but you can make fresh. DO NOT mash the potatoes with butter or milk if making fresh as the mash will be too soft.

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and then mix in the mashed potato, Mix with your hands (or a wooden spoon) until it forms a ball of pastry dough. If you like you can add some mustard to the mixture at this point, which gives a great flavour when cooked. I found some honey mustard in the cupboard and used a large heaped tablespoonful.

 Leave the dough in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour.

In the meantime, thinly slice the leeks and mushrooms. Fry the leeks gently until soft (about 5 minutes) but not brown and then add the mushrooms for another 3 to 4 minutes.

 Cool slightly and then stir in the cream cheese (a flavoured version if you like) or mascarpone.

Roll out the chilled dough into an approximate circle and place on a baking tray. Pinch the sides to make a saucer shape and add the filling. If you prefer to use a flan dish that makes it slightly easier, but there is no real need. If you like the base really crispy you can bake blind before adding the filling for about 10 minutes.

Bake in a hot oven - 180° C - for about 20 minutes until the top is browned and the potato case crispy.

I like to eat this with a green salad and a sharp tasting chutney ( I had some homemade apple chutney that was just right), but it is also a good accompaniment for sausages or chops.

This post is an entry for #FluffyMarisPiper Linky Challenge sponsored by Potato Council. Learn more at bit.ly/18rWnaB.

PACT COFFEE - fresh coffee delivered to your door

I love to drink fresh coffee. It was a habit that I picked up whilst living in Austria many years ago as a student.

Austria (and Vienna in particular) are famous for their coffee houses and Austrians like nothing better than to sit with a cup of coffee ....and usually a delicious pastry or cake of some sort. Sitting in a coffee house in Vienna is a luxurious unhurried pastime. There is always a newspaper to hand and the waiter will bring you a fresh glass of iced water to accompany your coffee. Many coffee houses in Austria open in the evenings with piano music and some host literary evenings. Very cultured.

When ordering coffee in Austria you are generally given a menu and get to choose the bean type as well as the way it arrives - espresso, cappuccino, mocha, latte, ristretto. I found this a complete novelty at first, but I ended up trying out many different coffee bean types than I would ever have done had I been buying the beans myself. One of my favourite drinks on a cold Winter's day was the Einspaenner - a strong black coffee served in a glass with lots of whipped cream on top and a small bowl of powdered sugar on the side.

Finding good quality coffee has been a bit hit and miss in the UK, although it has improved tremendously over the years and there are now specialist shops that will grind beans to your taste. The range in some of these shops (especially in the larger towns) is excellent, but it is not always possible to travel to buy the coffee and the cost of travel can often offset the value of the purchase. I believe that fresh coffee should be bought in small sizes, so that it is used at its freshest and has no opportunity to go stale.

I was quite excited then to see a leaflet in a magazine for a company that offers fresh coffee delivered to your door. PACT say that their mission is to get us all drinking better quality coffee by making it accessible to everyone. They roast in small batches and post out within seven days so that the coffee is at its very freshest.

The leaflet I saw offered a trial first order for £1.00 (usual price £6.95) so I thought "Why not? At that price it has to be worth it". 

The process of ordering coffee is very straightforward and you can choose to receive beans or ground coffee (tailored to your own type of machine). The frequency of deliveries is again your choice and there is no ongoing commitment. I elected to receive different coffee every time and to let the team choose for me. I was a bit concerned when I saw the first choice was El Retiro (Roasted hazelnuts) as I don't like hazelnuts (!!), but I decided that I should give it a try. And I'm glad I did.

The coffee arrived two days later in a brown bag suitable for storage. The label clearly shows both when it was roasted and ground, so you can be sure it is fresh as can be.

I am glad I stuck with this choice of coffee as it is very smooth and flavoursome. Not too nutty and very mellow. It's a great breakfast choice with a warm croissant and some homemade jam.

The coffee arrived with a little coffee magazine - the first edition as it happens - that contains some great tips for improving your cup of coffee.

I was just thinking about writing this post when I received a call from Brendan at Pact checking I had received the coffee and that I was happy with it. We had a discussion about how I liked the strength of my coffee and he offered to adjust the type of grind of the coffee sent to me to suit my particular liking. He also suggested a different coffee for the next time than the one originally chosen for me following our discussion. Truly a personalised service!

I will definitely be continuing with this service and am already looking forward to the next package!

If you would like to take advantage of the same £1.00 trial that I used, then just leave me a comment with an email address and I will send you a code.

Happy coffee drinking!!