Monday cook up

Instead of a lunch break yesterday (ha ha!) I went home a bit earlier to marinade chicken and make pastry before doing some more work for a couple of hours. Then when it was dinner time I was able to whip up a 2-course meal on a Monday night!

We had the Turkish style chicken casserole again mmmmm, so delicious and sweet.

And I had a go at the Almond & Pear Tart from this month’s Cuisine magazine. It was about my 3rd ever attempt at pastry which went quite well this time however I think when they say chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes, they literally mean 30 minutes. I left it in there quite a while and it returned to the consistency of a block of butter (especially given the amount of butter in it) so it just would NOT roll, and when it did, it cracked quite a bit. Really tested my patience and for those concerned, The Mister is safe and there was no throwing of utensils!

It had this kind of cakey middle bit, ground almonds, eggs, flour basically and I’m not sure whether it was supposed to cook to a cake consistency or remain a little squidgy. Mother if you end up making it can you tell me how yours turned out? I’m not sure mine was cooked through properly but still tasted delicious, like some kind of naughty-sweet muesli.

The finished product was great! I should’ve used more pears, and the soft kind (as much as I eat pears, I prefer the hard-skinned almost crisp ones) and my pastry was lovely and soft and buttery. And most importantly (aside from the Mister actually eating it … he can be nervous of new puddings) it looked like the picture!