Mother’s Day Bake

Happy Mother’s Day! Becky remembered half way through the afternoon, which made me laugh. That’s okay.  We spent the day together and did some baking, which seems like a good way to spend any day.

I was going to make a quiche, but as the temperature dropped and the rain rolled in, I did a slide to the left and switched to a warm and cozy Homity Pie from Paul Hollywood’s “British Baking”.  Paul notes that this is a recipe from the Midlands and was used by Land Girls during WWII.  I must say, I wasn’t introduced to a leek until I was in my twenties.  Mind you, I don’t think I had a home made pie until then either.  It’s filled with leeks, onions, potato and cheese, although cheese was rationed at the time, I presume they were able to grow all the other ingredients.

We had pastry left over from our Whitby Pie recipe and decided to use it today.  First you need to peel and cut 350g (2 medium) waxy potatoes into 2cm chunks and boil them until cooked.  We microwaved the whole potatoes, left them to cool, peeled and cubed them.  Slice 2 leeks and 2 onions and gently fry them in 1 tbsp of oil.

Add 1 chopped garlic clove, 1 tbsp of chopped parsley and 1 tbsp thyme leaves.  We used rosemary instead of thyme. Remove from the heat. Put this mixture in a bowl with the potatoes, 1 tbsp cream, 175g grated cheddar cheese, salt and pepper.  Roll out the pastry and line a 20 cm (8″) loose-bottomed cake tin. It needs to be 3-4 cm high. We just used a pie dish.

Fill your pastry crust with the filling and top with panko breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese.  I have no idea why we have panko breadcrumbs, but we do.  If you don’t, just use anything crunchy. Heat the oven and put a baking tray in to warm up. Put the pie on the hot baking tray and bake at 200C/400F for 40 minutes.  Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the tin.

We loved it!  I could have eaten the whole thing by myself!  So simple, so good, give it a try.

Happy Baking!

Cheryl and Becky