There's a mouse in the spinach!

Yes indeed, and it's cooked spinach to boot! This morning we were trying to practice some daylight saving and put the chicken pie together early (all ingredients were ready and waiting) when the King of Avalon opened the pressure cooker just to find a tiny brown field mouse (the size of a dwarf hamster) staring at him! I'm afraid no photo was taken as we were all equally bewildered. I had lightly cooked the spinach (chard) yesterday and had left it on the stove overnight with the pressure cooker's lid on but not locked, as it was cold and wouldn't spoil. Sadly, our mouse friend and the spinach are no longer.

But here's that recipe, it's really nice:

The Blue Plumbago CHICKEN PIE

Filling:

1 Bunch (200g) cooked spinach (chard)

1 Deboned cooked chicken (we smoke ours)

1 Bunch spring onion

1 Punnet (250g) mushrooms sliced and cooked

100g Feta

Thin white sauce (Belchemel) seasoned with salt, freshly ground black pepper and thyme to wet everything through and bind it together:

250ml milk

40ml butter

40ml flour

Mix together and press into a pyrex dish

Pre-heat Oven to 200 degrees Celcius

Pastry:

Sift together dry ingredients:

½ cup (125ml) flour

4 teaspoons (20ml) baking powder

Pinch of salt

Combine wet ingredients:

4 tablespoons (50ml) oil

1 cup (250ml) milk

2 eggs

Combine dry with wet. If it’s lumpy liquidize it quickly with a hand-held “Shzjoosh”. Don’t over do it or the baking powder will lose it’s effectiveness.

SECRET: filling must be piping hot when pastry is poured over (put pyrex dish in the mic) and then it must immediately be placed in hot oven.

Cook for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. 


Sadly I can't take a pic as I've just made the filling. We'll be making a fresh pastry when we defrost it to use.