MMMMM MA's beef pie!!

Best served with creamy mash.

You will need:
Puff pastry
Stewing/braising beef (amount as much or as little as you want)
Beef stock (I use 3 oxo cubes and make it with about 290 mls of bolding water)
salt and pepper
Worcestershire sauce
1 onion(or more if your making a huge pie)
Red wine(as much as you like to flavour the gravy/sauce)
And some plain flour.

First of all marinate the meat in some salt and pepper, sprinkle on some worcestershire sauce and some wine.
Chop and fry the onion for around five mins.
Brown the meat in the same pan as the onion.

Once meat has been browned then sprinkle in some flour. (Enough to cover all the meat) Then stir it in.

It will then look like this................ very glupie looking.

















Then  and the Stock and let it thicken.  Whilst its thickening, if you want your pie to have a pastry base as well as top, start to roll out the pastry to the size of your dish.  Cook for around 15 -20 mins till it starts to turn golden.  I do this because i have cooked it straight with out cooking the base first and i find it doesn't always cook through.  any by now the sauce should be ready for you to add the wine.  Add as much as you like its to give the gravy a rich nice and flavour and its purely down to personal choice.

Then you just add the pie filling into your dish and top with some more puffy pastry.  Cook for a round half an hour on 180 degrees.

There you go MMMMMM MA's beef pie.

yum yum yum!!
Sorry for the not very professional finished pie, but it was rushed as i was juggling myself between the cooking and both my DD's and was hard work, but goes to show even when your busy with the children you can rustle up a good hearty home cooked meal quickly.
Enjoy!!let me know what you think.

The World of blogging

I never would of thought that i would get into blogging quite so much.  I love reading them and i love writing my blog.  Even though  at the minute im slacking with my post i do always take snap shots of my day so i can blog about them or what ever else etc.  My new favourite blogs are
www.Thetraintocrazy.com

www.made-by-rae.com

www.theadventuresofroryandjess.blogspot.com

Sewing is my new craze and i love it im off to look on Ebay for some more fabric!

Catching up again grrr

Its sooo annoying that i don't have time to blog.  Well anytime i do have spare I'm just taking it to chill out because im just constantly rushing around...

My sewing adventures had started to go well and i was making my first draft of a pair of pjs.  Then the sewing machine stopped working grrrrr and its taken up all my spare time trying to fix it.  Well its all sorted now so i can crack on with the sewing again now tomorrow.  I found some old patterns for baby clothes that i am going to give a go, which is lucky as one of the styles of top is very similar to what i want to make fro a tutorial i have seen on theadventresofroryandjess.blogspot.com but i just could not figure out the pattern.  It was a really good tutorial but i just couldn't figure the pattern this is mainly because my mind is constantly thinking about other things so im glad i  found my ready made pattern, as well as a few other patterns i wanted to try to.

This is one of my materials for DD1's pj's

Finally got zumba  on Xbox Kinect but again iv had no time to play it.  I squeezed in a quick go but DD1 kept running infront of the TV but it seems really good.  Now she's in bed i may have another go later if not rumba deaf kinect sports.

DD1, i thought had lost her one and only dummy, i new it was in the house but i just couldn't find it.  So instead of replacing it i thought we just wont talk about it or anything and she hasn't needed it at all.  Also her speech has come on even better than what it was, but i then found the dummy and have had to keep it hidden from her hahahahha!!!!

Went to TGI fridays last night for the first time and it was soooooo sooooo yummy!!!!  The starter me and OH shared was boneless wings and they were just so spicy and amazing, i will attempt to make them at home so watch this space.

Tonight i made a lovely beef and onion pie which i will post how i did it with pics so if any one wants to make it they can but be warned you will be addicted to the gravy!!!

The rest of the day.....

just consisted on cleaning, boring same old cleaning.  I have restricted myself from cleaning every day and just do it every other day and tidy in-between.  As i was seriously obsessed and it started taking over my life!!! My Oh says he likes a nice clean tidy house but thinks i overly obsess!! Nothing exciting happened this evening apart from cutting my material for my make up bag project.  Watched apprentice water and which i absolutely love!!!  Also i think convinced oh to start blogging which will be good...he says he is going to start one tomorrow.  He has actually useful things to blog about i just ramble and talk junk!!!  That gets  me thinking i should blog about something useful but i have know idea what..............  Me and Oh also want to make an app we have the soft ware on the computer and i have a brilliant idea for an app just have to get oh butt in to gear because he is the commuter brains!!!!

Playing blogging catch up

Oh dear oh dear have not blogged for 3 days and have been desperate to find and hour or so to do some blogging, i never thought i would say this but i have missed logo which is good and it means I am actually trying to stick at something YAY!!!!!.  Well as you can see i changed the name of my blog it just felt more appropriate. Which means now i will have to edit my twitter account to match to!!!  I am loving twitter by the way though its sooo much better than face book think i need to make a transition from face book to twitter, which means i need to make my contacts switch to.  I have also taken up sewing as swell after being inspired by this blog theadventuresofroryandjess.blogspot.com a very good blog.  So all morning i have actually been fixing my machine,(twice might i add) and practicing my sewing as i haven't done it for years and i have to say after only a couple attempts I am getting better and more confident.  I just need to get some patterns made up now so i can start some projects.  I am going to do a separate page for my sewing stuff to keep a record and up date any who's interested.

Well Monday morning i had so many plans and none of them were achieved!!! I was so annoyed with my self.  I felt like i had a mini break down in the morning, but I am over it now and the less i think about it the better.  Any way the afternoon i thought me and my DD's  could walk up to our local Iceland to get a few bits and bobs for the day any way we walked up together and i carried DD 2 in her baby sling.  The walk was brill.  We saw  catipiller which strangely i haven't seen one for years.  DD1 was dead scared when i went to show and then wouldn't even consider walking past it and we had to cross the road hahaha!!  She was name all the colours of the cars on the way up, lucky for her most of them were blue, black, red and yellow the colours she can say!!! Any way we are in Iceland, which got a little stressful, not because i had DD1 walking with me swell as wearing DD2 and carrying a basket of shopping, mainly because of the other moron shoppers in there who don't look where they are going and are complete ignorant busy bodies.  Rant over got to the till to pay, put my card in the chip and pin machine only to realise i ad brought the wrong card with me!!!! ARRGGGHHH  i thought, luckily the bank was across the road so i said can i leave my shopping and run over there, so i did went back and paid. Really stress full because DD1 was really fed up by that point and want something to eat!!!  So note to self be more organised!!!

....And thats what Sundays are all about

Well a very wet sunday indeed!!! It has rained all day so you would think i would be stuck in the house oh nooooo!!  I offered to go to our local town centre to trade in a blackberry play book at our local CEX.  Due to trains not running today i had to take bus which was an hour round trip.  In the pouring rain may i add.  So i get to the store only to be told in the rudest possible manor that the will not trade in the blackberry playbook as it has an american plug even though i had an adaptor for it.  I could except that answer but i could not expect how it was given to me.  The women i spoke to talked to me like crap and just had the worlds worst attitude, so i just left the shop.  After speaking to my partner he informed me that other CEX stores have them in stock so there for must except products from the states, as the play book has not been released in the uk yet.  Also when the first Ipad came out we had one from the states and when we wanted to trade it in the excepted it no problem with an american plug!!!!  My feeling is she just could not be bothered doing her job and did not want to test it etc.  Her attitude really did stink!!!  So i sent CEX an email i will proberly only get some generated response and the stores a franchise but still the email form had the option for store complaints and any bad experience is damaging to their name so they should take some intreats.  I would like to point out over the years me and my partner have traded in a lot of things for other things in the store and use their service all the time and have got to say recently the store has been very good and help full until today.  I have had issues with the store before but in the last year i would say the service has been good up until today.  This woe has zero people skills and should not work in a face to face environment as she is just bringing the store down!!!.  I have used other CEX stores in uxbridge, Bristol, and Gloucester and never once had a problem for doing any store trade in or cash trade in.  Cardiff store has a major issue with cash trade in's.  The hardly ever do it however other stores just treat it like any other transaction.  In my opinion some of the staff are brilliant you can have a laugh and a joke with them whilst you are waiting and some including this women cant even raise a smile or a "how can i help" or even vary the tone of their voice when talking.  I think i would rather deal with a broken self service check out constantly stuck on "place item in the bag" then deal with women again  totally appalling.

......Anyway.  The rest of my sunday was a trip up to the local shops to get dinner then came home caught up with some emails did a bit of blogging and tweeting and had a chat on face book.  Bathed my lovely girls and made a roast turkey dinner which was sooo yummy tidied up once my darlings were asleep and the chowed down to some chocolate cake and cream as thats what sundays are all about.............................

Any advise

or tips on how to improve my blog and who to make it look more interesting as i have no idea on how to add things etc part from pictures and videos so please help