Lamb and mint pie with roast veg; summer berry crumble and custard

Further to yesterday’s post, I’m pleased to say that mum did go to church this morning, and enjoyed it so much that she was trying to work out how to get there again next week before she had even changed out of her church clothes. I got to meet another of her church ‘friends’ (in quotes as I’m not sure how mutual the friendship is), who gave mum a lift home and saw her to the front door: after the friend giving me an uninvited hug and kiss, and then describing me as “adorable”, I can very much see why mum may not be enthusiastic to further the friendship.

And so to dinner, which was scheduled to feature homemade summer berry crumble with strawberry cheesecake gelato: however, I turned the oven down too far after cooking the pies so the crumble didn’t so much cook as slowly heat up, and by the time it was cooked mum didn’t want any. The review below is therefore mine alone, and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for mum’s opinion.

Lamb and mint pies: constructed just the way I like pies, with shortcrust pastry on the bottom and puff pastry on the top (which, yes, got a little caramelised on one pie, so of course I took that one). The shortcrust pastry actually had a decent buttery flavour, too. Cutting into the pie produced a waft of mint-scented steam and a swift warning to mum to be careful (which neither of us heeded, given the huffing and puffing which followed). The filling was properly savoury, but to me tasted of neither lamb nor mint: at a price of £1 for two pies, though, I can’t really complain. Mum finished hers, so I would get them again without hesitation.

And so to crumble, which definitely needed more crumble than I gave it, as most of the thin layer dissolved into the fruit beneath it. (As I noted in a comment on Facebook, I realised I hadn’t made enough crumble only after putting the bowl from the food processor in the sink full of washing up water and decided against washing and drying it just to use it again, which in hindsight was the wrong decision.)

What crumble there was was very nice, which only makes it more annoying that I made so little of it: it was nicely crunchy on top, and the remains of a bag of mixed nuts which I threw in in the spirit of “why not?” gave it a bit of variation in texture. The fruit, though, was a triumph. I know that cooking bagged frozen fruit isn’t exactly a challenge, but I eyeballed the amount of sugar required and got it spot on, so it was sweet enough to be tasty but tart enough to not be cloying.

Mum said she will have some tomorrow, as long as I haven’t eaten it all by then, which I must admit isn’t quite as preposterous an idea as I would like to pretend. As my first bit of real, albeit very simple, cooking since July, though, I’m positively delighted with it.

Now I’m just waiting for it to be a suitable time to go to bed, having once again ignored the strictures of fatigue management and run out of spoons some time before I have run out of day. 🥱 G’night, peeps.