sam_t | Triumphs of the weekend

Despite having a rather painful back at the moment (sciatica: will be seeing dr. at first available appointment, i.e. next Monday, grrr), I managed to achieve two new (to me) things this weekend, as well as working on a crocheted scarf, keeping up with the washing and tidying up the garden for the first time since Autumn: double-crust turkey and mushroom pie and a rice bag.

The rice bag (of the microwave-and-apply-to-aching-muscles variety) was made to these instructions from Wise Craft. This produces a long, thinnish bag with plenty of room for the rice (or whatever else you use) to move about, meaning that it isn't too solid and it's easy to shape around joints. Lessons learnt while making it include: pinning and tacking works, even if you're feeling impatient; don't mark the right side of material (oops); leave the decorative stitching until the needle has moved off the corner where the seams meet; remember to count seam allowances on all of the bits of fabric when measuring. That last one is slightly embarrassing, in a failure of mental arithmetic way: I was about to write something about still having my usual talent for being able to measure something three times and get three different results, but I've suddenly realised where the extra half-inch went. I forgot to count the seam allowance on one of the bits of fabric.

I used some unknown woven plain white fabric (I tested a bit in the microwave first, to check that it didn't melt) for the inner bag and a blue-and-white striped cotton that used to be a nightshirt for the outer, with a white stripe on each end because there wasn't quite enough of the blue-and white in one length. I used a decorative diamond stitch (in black, which I am using on white fabric because it means I see my mistakes) for the topstitching on the ends. I was rather disturbed to find, when it was all finished, that this combination of fabric and stitches makes it look rather as if I've amputated one of Andy-Pandy's legs, but possibly the comparison wouldn't occur to anyone else. Anyway, it all worked out fairly well, considering that this is the first practical thing I've made with a sewing machine in years, and the first completed project with this sewing machine at all.

The turkey pie I made up as I went along, more or less. I wanted a double-crust pie with a fairly solid filling that would stand up to being taken to work, cold. I used bought pastry, I'm afraid - one packet of Jus-Roll shortcrust. One day I will conquer the pastry jinx, but now is not the time.

I greased and base-lined a loose-bottomed 20cm round sandwich (shallow cake) tin, rolled out 2/3 of the pastry to fit, pressed it into the tin using offcuts to shore up the corners and edges, filled it with a layer of baking parchment and split peas and baked it for 15 mins at 200C. With hindsight, this wasn't enough - I had to go out at this point so didn't check closely enough. It was cooked, but only just, and didn't stay quite crisp enough after the filling went in.

For the filling, I softened a chopped onion in margarine, added three large sliced field mushrooms and a small packet of soaked dried wild mushrooms (drained), and carried on frying until the fresh mushrooms were cooked. Then I added a very generous handful of plain flour, at which point I discovered firstly that the wild mushrooms should have been added later as they were still very wet and secondly that having pastry in the oven rather interferes with an ability to tell when the flour has cooked enough - you can't smell the slight toasty smell because the air around the cooker already smells like that. Anyway, after a couple of minutes, I added the mushroom soaking water (pouring carefully to leave any grit at the bottom) and enough milk to get the sauce to the point where it coated the back of the spoon. I brought it to a gentle simmer, let it thicken for a couple of minutes, then turned off the heat and let it cool uncovered (to thicken further) while I was out.

When I got back, I added a boxful of cooked shredded turkey - one of the small boxes I use for freezing, maybe 1/2-3/4 pint, unsquashed - and a chunk of stuffing cut into two or three pieces, and heated it gently while the oven warmed up and I rolled out the remaining 1/3 of a packet of pastry. Then the filling went into the tin and the pastry went on top, being arranged carefully to hide the places where previous patching round the top hadn't quite worked. I glazed the top with milk, cut a cross in it, and put it into the oven at 180C until it was golden brown.

It was delicious. Could perhaps have done with some herbs, but the stuffing helped with that. Good with mustard mash, broccoli, cabbage sautéed with a tiny bit of bacon and gravy yesterday; equally good with cranberry sauce and leftover celeriac remoulade this lunchtime. I've got loads of it left, but that's not too much of a hardship.