Pie, Mash & Mixed Veg

Sometimes I seem to forever eating up food from the freezer!  I try to minimise what I freeze as I’ve a small freezer and if things are left to linger then I just have a freezer full of food – a freezer is not for permanent storage, you do have to eat what you freeze!

So last night I retrieved a slice of a Castle Grove Deep Fill Minced Beef & Onion Pie I’d portioned and frozen.  I put the quarter portion into a small cooking dish and covered it with foil, then left it in the fridge overnight to defrost.

The portion is a 1/4 of the pie, under 400 calories, so “not bad” calories wise – and it’s a pie, I do like pies.  I thought I’d also use up some frozen veg from the freezer to go with it, I’ve currently got a bag of mixed frozen veg containing carrots, peas, sweetcorn and green beans (this has to count as something towards my 5-a-day for those that count!).  For ease, as I’ve no potatoes in the house I thought I’d use the last of my instant mash, rather than going out shopping just for a potato.

How to Cook: 

1. I poured out sufficient frozen vegetables into my microwave vegetable steamer and poured water over the veg, then put the lid on.  This went into the microwave set on high (800 watts) for 5 minutes – after that time I just left the vegetables in the microwave to continue steaming and staying warm until the pie was cooked.
2. I put my 1/4 portion of pie in my mini oven, setting the temperature gauge to 185°C and set the timer to 10 minutes.  No need to pre-heat as the oven is so small it pre-heats in minutes.  The pie was placed on the bottom rack with the top and bottom elements on – this warms and browns the pie portion from the top as well as baking it from the bottom.
3. After 10 minutes I turned the oven down to 180°C and set the timer for a further 5 minutes.
4. I boiled the kettle for the mash and gravy – putting a heaped teaspoon of gravy in a small cup and adding some black pepper and a small knob of butter to the dried potato, these I left on the side as they would be prepared at the very end.

Bringing it all Together: 

1. Once the pie had “pinged”, after a total of 15 minutes’ cooking time, I left the oven door closed while I boiled the kettle and strained the veggies that’d been left in the microwave.
2. I put the mixed vegetables into my dinner bowl, then mixed up the potato and gravy.
3. I removed the pie from the oven and put it into the bowl, then put the potato and gravy on my meal – and that was it!

This was a really tasty and quick hot meal, who doesn’t like a good pie!

Total Cost:

I’d bought the pie when it was reduced, costing me just £0.35, so this total meal cost me £0.50.  If I’d paid full price for the pie the total cost will have still only been about £0.70-£0.75.

This was a great filling, hot and tasty main meal.