Porkie Pies

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The weather has been sunny for most of the week, but the heaters have been really appreciated first thing in the morning for taking the chill off the lower overnight temperatures.

Nicky has been as busy as ever at the library, and I have had a good week work-wise too. When I get paid for it the bank balance will gain a welcome improvement for a little while.

On Monday I made some pork pies, using the Hairy Bikers recipe, on the whole. Their recipe was to make four 2-person pies. For the pastry this required 50g of butter and 150g of lard. I replaced the lard with rice bran oil, curious to see how it would turn out. I also omitted the jelly as I don't like it and it is the worst part of the pie to make. The end results were very interesting. I was very pleased with the pastry as it had the crunchiness that you expect with a pork pie, without having to use a pneumatic drill to get through it. The filling was OK, not as good as Dickinson & Morris (Of Melton Mowbray), as I didn't think it was spicy enough. The lack of jelly didn't seem to any difference really, the pies were just a little dryer. I froze a couple of the pies to see how they faired with freezing and defrosting, and they did very well. I bought some Branston pickle on Thursday and that went down beautifully with the pies. Overall, a good result, just some more work needed on the filling. Thanks to the Hairy Bikers and Katharine.

The weather hasn't been so good this weekend, so we haven't got much laundry done. I got a couple of loads done during the week which have been ironed today, but it has been an inside sort of weekend really. We are forecast to get some more sunshine next week.

We had the budget here this week, which was not very exciting. I don't think it will make a great deal of difference to us with not being smokers. The Maori party are trying to make the whole of NZ smoke free by 2025 (I think? - not sure on that date).

FYI - I have had a bit of an issue with anonymous comments being posted on the blog, so I have changed the comments setting. If this causes you difficulty, just drop me an email.

That's all for now,
Take care, Rick

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