The Great Pasty Experiment - Will It Be Marvelous?

We decided to make pasties for dinner tonight. I bought a pastry mix (pastRy, not pasty) at the store since I couldn't find any pasty jackets. They had them at the butcher's yesterday, so I thought that the big supermarket would have them, too. Wrong-o. So I settled for what is basically a pie crust mix. I got that since we don't have any shortening and I only had to add water to the mix.

Anyway -

While the kids were still asleep, Steve watched while I chopped up potatoes and sliced up some of the not-cube steak. While I mixed in salt, pepper, thyme, and a little water, Steve mixed up the pastry mix. It was a weird experience. Let me just say that had we been in the U.S. we would have declared the instructions wrong and done it ourselves. But for some reason, we convinced ourselves that the "baking rules" were different in England and we suspended our critical thinking skills. And our cooking skills. We ended up with thick, thick, THICK dough that Steve could hardly knead. We needed to roll the dough out to a normal thickness (I'm guessing 1/4 inch), then cut a circle the size of a dinner plate. It took 20 minutes. We finally got enough water mixed back in that we could work the dough. The first 2 pasties we made were with this dough. It's lumpy and bumpy and thick and quite unattractive. Those pasties are for the children. They won't know the difference, thankfully.

The next packet of dough went much better. Steve chucked the instructions and did it his way. We soon had smooth, beautiful pastry dough that was the right thickness, pliable, and wasn't falling apart! He said that he knew better when he was mixing up the first batch, but again, we assumed "different baking rules." After all, they drive differently, talk differently, and are generally different, so why not?

We ended up with 2 retarded-looking pasties, one nice pretty normal-looking one, and one GIANT one. Guess who gets the giant one.... Yup. Dr. Nuke gets the ginormous pasty. Hopefully dinner won't be bad. If it is, we have leftover tiny chickens in the fridge from yesterday. Smaller even than Cornish Game Hens. Caleb ate one (minus bones and other nasty bits) by himself.

It's been rainy and cool today, thankfully. Not just cool - cold. It was 13 when we went to church. That's 55. Nice. Of course I'm all hot now because of the pasty work and the oven, but I'm sure it will pass.

I think I'm one big step closer to getting the Ireland/Scotland trip ironed out. I did some extensive research last night on ferry prices and discovered some significantly lower prices on dates I hadn't originally looked at. Like £40, which translates to roughly $75. So that makes me feel a little less "mean" as they say here. My fist is loosening a bit on the cash. I think tonight after dinner I'll get hotels booked.

As for the ferry, not only do we have to pay based on what type of vehicle we have, but also how many people are aboard. They ask for ages of the kids, but I'm not sure if that really makes a difference. I might put in something other than their real ages to see if it changes things.

Let's try now for pictures:
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Nope. Not working tonight. Oh well.

While I was typing earlier, the pasties finished cooking. I took my dinner break and I can report that the great pasty experiment was not a failure, but was fine. Everything tasted fine, the crusts were fine, the meat and taters were fine. It was merely fine. I'm going to be a bit more adventurous and try to figure out different fillings involving things like cheese to elevate our status from "fine" to "really good."

Have I mentioned before that I think they're showing American shows back at a faster speed then we see them at home? Voices are higher. I can especially tell with men's voices. Like Jack in "Without a Trace." And the female Hispanic character talks MUCH faster than she does on TV in the US. On "Law & Order" last night, I noticed that the "bonk bonk" thatprecedess major scene changes is also higher pitched and faster. That was a jolt to my ears. I know - weird thing to notice, but I do.

Oh and let me say that Steve has found a FABULOUS chocolate cake. It's from the grocery store. Can you believe it? Sorry, Aunt Lisa, but it's my new favorite cake of all time. It's small - if we cut it into quarters, the pieces are just right. It's maybe 5 inches across and 3 tall. It's 2 layers and has chocolate chunks on the top and 2 different icings - one on top and one between layers. Ahhhhhhh. It's so good we don't share it with the kids. It's THAT good.

I'm going to go now. Steve is putting sheets back on beds. Both big kids had accidents last night - Audrey in our bed and Caleb in his own. So we washed sheets on all 3 beds. I was just in the laundry room rearranging some of the sheets in the dryer when I remembered something I've been meaning to post. Our washer, despite being as slow as molasses in winter, must be good. It turns our duvet covers inside out every time we wash them. If you're not sure what a duvet cover is (doo-VAY), it's basically a pillowcase the size of a duvet, or comforter. It flips our European King-sized duvet cover inside out every time. Plus I found a pillowcase wadded up in the toe of the cover. Of course nothing was as dry as it should have been, which was why I was rearranging the sheets.