recipe: bacon, leek and potato pie

I do love it when a plan comes together. I am, unfortunately, not talking about our travel plans just yet. We have made some progress today but still very much at the drawing board stage. If I thought commuting was tricky, planning a trip for three, across the vast geography of Australia, with limited time and budget is proving infinitely more complex. I am very much looking forward to going, but trying to make sure we plan a realistic, but special holiday that doesn't blow the budget all together is the task ahead!

On an altogether smaller scale, though, was the creation of this recipe and it is being firmly placed in the successfully completed plans box. It was one of those recipes borne purely out of what was left lurking in the fridge before I do the weekly shop tomorrow, knowing that Grandad was coming for dinner and wondering what to make. With a trusty BBC Good Food recipe, the saving grace of some puff pastry lurking in the freezer, and the fact that a good home-made pie is an unbeatable meal on a cold, dark, November night, I turned leftovers into a great dinner. It's pretty much the BBC Good Food recipe (link below) just adapted a little to what I had in, and other than a rogue bay leaf that ended up on The Husband's plate it worked very well. I don't ever feel like a particularly good cook, I enjoy baking cakes, but savoury dishes are not really my thing, so it was lovely to eat something and feel like it had been a success.

Recipe: Bacon, Leek and Potato Pie

Serves 4

(Recipe ever so slightly adapted from BBC Good Food)

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large white onion

3 medium leeks

1 packet of smoked bacon (300g)

4 large potatoes

1 sheet ready-made puff pastry

300ml chicken stock

100ml milk

3 tbsp flour

2 tsp english mustard
3-4 bay leaves
1 egg

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 180° C.
• Boil kettle of water. Whilst kettle is boiling, peel potatoes and chop into medium chunks.
• Put potatoes in pan, cover with boiling water, add salt, and put on high heat to boil.
• While potatoes are boiling, peel and slice onion and slice leeks. 
• Heat oil in an ovenproof pan/dish (if you don't have one make this mixture in a pan and transfer to pie dish later).
• Add onions and leeks to oil and cook to soften. Sprinkle with flour.
• Chop bacon into strips and add to onion and leeks. Stir until bacon cooked through.
• Add mustard, milk, bay leaves and chicken stock to mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
• When potatoes are cooked add to the mixture and heat until thickened (transfer to pie dish now if required).
• Top with sheet of pastry, cut some slits in the top to allow steam to escape. Brush with beaten egg.
• Bake in oven for twenty minutes, until pastry is risen and golden.
• Serve (keep an eye out for the bay leaves!).