Food Fail

I saw a blog post recently, although I don't remember where, where the writer had made a fish pie inside baked potato shells and topped it with mashed potato  made from the scoopings from the baked potatoes.  A good idea, I thought.

A few days later Jim dug up the last of the potatoes in the Hill House allotment. There were a couple of large spuds amongst the crop so I decided to give the fish pie idea a go.

I couldn't find the blog post and didn't remember who had written it or even when I had seen it. But how hard can it be to bake a couple of potatoes and make a fish pie filling?

I had salmon, hoki and prawns in the freezer. I pretty nearly always have the wherewithal to make a white sauce. So I made a fish pie filling and put the two large spuds in to bake.

I was unsurprised to find that the core of the potatoes had been munched by some creature, and cut out the manky bits and saved the rest.  Alas.  It made very poor mash.  The inside of the potatoes went into the compost bin.

No worries, thought I.  I'll put the fish mixture into the shells and put the lid of the potato on top.

The fish pie mixture was delicious.  Seriously so. Alas (again) the shells were too hard to eat.  So not a fishy fail but a definite potato fail. And I suppose not a washing up fail.  No fish pie dish to clean.  I'll give it another go and see if I can make it a potato win next time!

Otherwise we have been eating quite well. We made a care visit to Stella at the weekend and had chicken pinwheels made by my local butcher.  We've had them before and they are lovely. We partnered them with roast potatoes and pumpkin from the Hill House allotment, and green things, not from the allotment. I am minded to have a go at  making the pinwheels myself.  It doesn't look as though it would be very complicated, although whether I could make them at home for the amount I pay for them at the butcher is another matter.

We have had some beautiful late autumn weather recently. Sunshine, blue skies, light winds.  It was glorious at Mount Martha, and several degrees warmer than it has been at Mount Helen. It's not such a nice morning today. Dark clouds, high winds and a bit on the chilly side.  Still, I suppose it is nearly June so not really surprising.

We might head out to Elaine today. I need a few things, most of which I'll be able to get there. I might even go wild and go to Woolies. I haven't physically been since we got back in the middle of March (although I did have one delivery when we were quarantined and I've been in the Coles by the surgery a couple of times). The farm shops and the IGA in Mount Clear have filled most of my needs.  But there are a few supermarket staples that I am beginning to run short of which I can't get in Mount Clear.

But first I should probably get dressed.