Party ideas

Six weeks have gone by since my last blog. The only excuse I have, is that I have been busy with  my exercises in order to get back to a walking normality as soon as possible.
Seeing the Christmas season is soon upon us, I thought you might like to have some tried and trusted recipes for delicious Party fare.

I would not even try to count the parties and family get togethers we had in our house over the years. For me the most enjoyable part is the planning and executing of the food for the Party.  Once you have decided what kind of food you want to serve, finger food, cold or hot Buffet, you then can choose your
recipes.
One of the easiest and tastiest and quickest finger food to make are the baked chicken pieces, which have been marinated in my own concoction!

The second recipe is a Minced Beef Pie, which is very versatile, you can either serve it in small pieces or  serve it as a main course with a big bowl of green salad. It is equally tasty hot as cold.
Both, the chicken dishes and the Minced Beef Pie, are perfect meat dishes for any Buffet.

My next blog will deal with the roasting of birds, big and small.

Marinated chicken

Ingredients (Marinade)

1/2 cup chili ketchup ( use normal ketchup with 1/4 tsp chili powder)
1/2 Sherry ( or Port)
3 cloves of garlic (cut small)
1/2 tsp saltblack pepper
1 Tablespoon dark Soya Sauce
1  "       "        Balsamic vinegar
1   "      "        Maple Syrup ( honey or  brown sugar)


Method

Mix all the above ingredients
until you have a sirupy sauce. Marinate the  fresh chicken pieces for at least 2 hrs, for best results marinate the  pieces overnight. Refrigerate.

Put the chicken on to a baking tray and bake at 175C between 35 and 45 minutes depending on your oven.

In the summer you can of course grill the pieces on your barbeque.

Serve the chicken pieces with a variety of salads.

Minced Beef Pie

Pastry
You can use any of your favourite pastry, this recipe works equally well with Short Crust Pastry,
Puff Pastry ( ready made, bought), yeast dough for Pizza.
(The recipe for my Pastry will be under the heading, American Pie)
If you use either Short crust or Puff Pastry you might want to bake the Pastry blind for 20 min. to achieve a good base. Or make sure the filling is cold. The Pie, you see on the photo has been filled without being baked before hand

Filling

Ingredients:
400g very lean beef minced ( if you can get it freshly minced, do! This makes a big difference to the overall taste)
1 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp Worcester Sauce
1/4 l water ( approx)
some vegetable oil for frying
some chili pepper ( optional)
1 clove of garlic ( optional)
1 large onion sliced
slices of Cheddar or Gouda cheese ( enough to cover the pie)


Method:
Fry the meat until it starts to brown,
add the flour, mix around and fry until the meat and flour is browned. Add enough water to make
the mixture look saucy, see picture above. If you have too much water in the pan, simply boil it off until you have the right consistency. Add the seasoning. Leave to cool. Once the mixture is cooled down, line a baking tray with the pastry of your choice, spread some tomato sauce of your choice thinly on the base. Add the meat, the onion slices and cover the lot with the cheese.
Bake for approx 45 minutes at 175C

Note: The filling can be used to make Empanadas. Delicious

The delicious end result

I used yeast dough for my pie but have successfully used both Short Crust and Puff Pastry