I made a lovely chicken and bacon pie the other day, then followed it with a batch of brownies. I have always enjoyed cooking, but recently I have started enjoying it in a slightly different way.
For about ten years, cooking has been my job in the household. It has been part of the daily routine: deciding what to make, getting the ingredients and making sure there is something to eat. That routine has changed quite quickly. Now I see cooking more as a hobby, and I want to make the most of that.
A Saturday morning in the kitchen
Saturday morning is a good time for it. I like being able to get busy in the kitchen without trying to squeeze everything into the end of a working day. There is time to choose something I fancy making, get the ingredients out and spend a bit longer on it.
The change is mostly in how I approach it. Cooking regularly for a household involves plenty of practical decisions, even when you enjoy doing it. Having more freedom over when and what I cook has made me want to try things simply because they look good.
Pies and brownies are both things I enjoy making. A pie gives me a few different jobs to get stuck into, from chopping the vegetables to making the filling and sorting out the pastry. Baking gives me a change of pace afterwards. I am quite happy spending part of the morning doing both.
The chicken and bacon pie
The pie was Samuel Goldsmith’s chicken and bacon pie on BBC Good Food. It has a creamy filling beneath a puff-pastry lid. I was really pleased with how mine turned out.
The method starts with browning the chicken and bacon, then setting them aside. Onion, carrots and celery soften in the same pan with bay and thyme. White wine goes in and reduces before the meat returns.
Wholegrain mustard and flour come next, followed by chicken stock. The filling simmers, then double cream is stirred in before it goes into an ovenproof dish. That sequence builds the sauce around the meat and vegetables.
Ready-rolled puff pastry covers the filling. The edges are crimped, the top gets an egg glaze and two openings let steam out. Good Food gives it 30 to 40 minutes in the oven, until the pastry is golden. The linked recipe has the quantities and full timings.
There is something satisfying about bringing those separate parts together into a pie. I enjoy making the filling as much as finishing the top. Using ready-rolled pastry also lets me spend my time on the parts I feel like doing that morning.
Brownies afterwards
After the pie, I made Good Food’s easy gooey brownies. I like having something savoury and something sweet to make when I have a bit of time in the kitchen.
This recipe begins by gently melting butter, brown sugar, chocolate and golden syrup together. Separately, the eggs and caster sugar are whisked until airy. Vanilla, the sifted dry ingredients and the melted chocolate mixture are then folded together.
The batter goes into a lined tin in layers, with spoonfuls of caramel or chocolate hazelnut spread between them. The recipe offers those alternatives, so there is some choice over the filling. It calls for about 30 minutes of baking, with a set top and a little movement underneath, followed by cooling completely before cutting.
The cooling is part of the process I have to leave time for. Once something is out of the oven, it is tempting to think the job is finished. With brownies, there is still that wait before cutting them into squares.
I am happy following a recipe for something like this. It gives me a useful starting point and lets me enjoy making it without turning the morning into an experiment. I have linked both originals because those are the recipes I used, and the measurements belong with their methods.
Other things I want to make
There is quite a long list of dishes that would suit the same sort of morning. On the savoury side, I like the idea of a chicken and leek pie, a vegetable lasagne, mushroom risotto, a chickpea curry or a big pan of chilli. A roasted tomato soup with fresh bread would be good too, especially as the weather gets colder.
Homemade pizza, a quiche or focaccia would give me a reason to spend a little more time on the preparation. For baking, I would like to try cinnamon buns, a lemon drizzle cake, banana bread, cookies and an apple crumble. These are ideas for future Saturdays, alongside the pies and brownies I already enjoy.
I do not need to work through the whole list quickly. Part of the appeal is being able to pick something that suits the morning, rather than having a new set of things I feel obliged to finish.
Keeping the enjoyment in it
I spend much of my working week at a screen. Cooking gives me something different to put my attention into for a while. There are ingredients to prepare, things to taste and a meal or a batch of baking at the end of it.
Having cooking as my household job for so long has given me plenty of time in the kitchen. I still enjoy that practical side. What feels different now is having more room to choose a dish because I want to make it, and to take my time doing so.
The pie and brownies were a good reminder of that. I enjoyed getting stuck in, and I would like more Saturday mornings like it. There are plenty of things on the list for the next one.