We needed to wrestle with setting the heating system on this much colder morning.
I have been reading “Lovely is the Lee” by Robert Gibbings for the last three days and should finish it for review tomorrow.
In the meantime I watched Jackie building one of her excellent beef pies for tonight’s dinner. As she said “several hours in the making, consumed in twenty minutes.
The filling had been cooked earlier, then set aside.
I wondered what this little clay balls were for. It turns out they were to ensure that the base of the pie would not be soggy. They are placed on tin foil set in the base and heated in the oven. The ceramic bowl beside them is to contain them afterwards until they are cool enough to return to their plastic pot.
The lid and the appliqué decorations are neatly cut to size;
the lid firmly fixed in place;
forked and coated with milk
to help the pastry decorations to stick,
then painted with beaten egg to aid browning in the oven, from where
it is placed on the table,
and plated up.
I don’t need words to describe our feast.