July 31- Pies n' Cakes

Dinner the second was a quiet affair. Also, this was not the best dinner I've ever made though a valiant effort was certainly put forth.

I had decently optimistic expectations for the Chicken and Parsley Pie. Who doesn't like a good chicken pot pie, right? And this looked like it was just that, but huge.
However, I'm not sure that I am a great fan of the flavours and textures created by combining massive amounts of chicken with massive amounts of parsley. I used Italian parsley and that might or might not have been the culprit. I have rarely if ever cooked with fresh parsley of any variety let alone such a quantity.
Speaking of quantity - the two chickens that this recipe calls for seems a but much. I think one would have been plenty and then I would have had better baking dish choices. As it was I ended up using a pretty typical casserole dish. I just barely was able to fit all my ingredients in to it. I did finally got to use the little blackbird pie funnel we've had sitting in the cupboard for years - BONUS!

Another quick note: what ever quantity of shortcrust pastry these recipes call for - HALVE IT. At the end of the baking time the instructions call for you to heat a decent amount of double cream to a boil, and then remove the pastry rose from the top of the pie in order to our said hot cream in to the pie. This just did not happen. That cream refused to go down my little funnel and cutting the pie open to pour it in was also not an option. Even though I had only added chicken stick up to the half way mark as instructed the chicken itself was juicy and filled so much of the pie that there wasn't really any room within for the cream. It's a real shame as I think it would have made quite a difference in the final outcome. Not that it wasn't still pretty tasty, but I will defiantly do things a bit differently if I ever make this again.

I was also unimpressed by the Cornish Potato Cakes. The were quick and simple to make and blaaaaaaand. A generous pinch of salt? Howsabout a good teaspoon of salt and maybe some pepper.

Lastly, I had a bit of a change in schedule and have postponed making Mrs. Palmer's Russian Cream until later this week.

Instead I bumped up the making of Cherry Bumpers. These were my favorite items of the evening. Local Rainier cherries with crushed almonds and almost essence inside a little pastry purse. Nothing about that isn't yummy. They were easy to make and a delicious little treat. I *might* have accidentally splashed in a bit more of the almond essence than I had meant to but I think it might have made them all the better. That cherry-almond combination is one of my all time favorite flavours/scents.