Time to Start Cooking

I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I love to watch cooking shows (thank goodness I don't have cable because my weekends would be spent watching the Food Network), I love to collect recipes and I love to cook for my family and friends. I hate cooking for just myself. The idea of cooking a bunch of meals and freezing them only to be thawed out and cooked weeks later just does not appeal to me. It never has and never will.

But I have a dietary restriction: salt. This means I need to cook fresh food and not eat processed food (i.e. frozen dinners, boxed rices, canned meats, etc). So I now I have to force myself to cook for only myself. What I try to do on Sunday afternoons is cook a couple of things I can eat later in the week (but NOT put in the freezer to eat sometime in May!). Right now I have country-style pork ribs in the slow cooker with low-sodium BBQ sauce. Lately I've been on a chicken salad kick so I've been making that each week and eating it for lunch a couple days a week. I don't really have a recipe for this but it consists of chicken (that I cooked, not from a can), low-salt mayo, no-salt mustard, apples, walnuts, pepper, dill, parsley and lemon juice.

The other planned recipe for today is Beef Pasties (pasties with the 'a' pronounced as it is in 'cat') which are pastries that are usually filled with beef, sliced potatoes, tunrips and onions (my recipe is a little different). If you haven't heard of these here's a little history: they originated in Cornwall, England and were lunch for the Cornish tin miners who, even covered in dirt, could hold the pasty by the folded crust and eat the reast without touching it. They would then discard the dirty pastry end they were holding because it was dirty and it was supposed to appease the knockers, capricous spirits in the miners who might other lead miners into danger.

While I think most recipes for pasties tend to be a little bland, I've taken the recipe below and spiced it up a little bit by adding spices and peas. You could probably also add finely chopped carrots or other veggies if you wanted. And by making them a little smaller, I think kids would love them.

My, look at the time. Got to go, America's Test Kitchen is on TV. But if you are interested, here is the recipe I started with from "Outdoor Entertaining."

Beef Pasties - Serves 4

Ingredients

1 pound of ground beef

1 onion, finely chopped

1 russet potatoe, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

2 boxes ready-made pie crusts

1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium-size bowl mix ground beef, onion, potato, salt and pepper. Cut pit crust rounds in half. On one side of each half place a small handfull of mixture and fold the other side of the dough over the meat, creating a triange shape. Gently press along the edges to seal the pastry and brush with beaten egg. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minues, then lower to 325 degrees and bake until crust is golden brown, an additional 45 minutes.