Squash and potato pie with braised red cabbage and mustard

I made this pie in the deep mid-winter but I think comfort foods like this are still appropriate when even the supermarket's daffodils are refusing to spring. Made with Jus-roll puff pastry, this would be a perfect weekend lunch for friends and will make enough for six servings.

Team up with the braised red cabbage, apples and onion recipe from way back in November for optimum comfort times, and of course a hefty dollop of English mustard for good measure.

Ingredients
Jus-roll puff pastry
1 onion, chopped into circles
1/4 gem squash, chopped into large chunks
2 carrots, chopped
2 handfuls of potatoes, peeled
2 bay leaves
500 ml stock
Vegetable or sunflower oil
Seasoning
A little soy milk for glaze

Sweat the onion rounds in a large saucepan with the oil, then add in the carrots, squash, potatoes, bay leaves and seasoning. Allow the vegetables just to start heating up before adding the stock and bringing to the boil.

Cook with a lid on for around 20 minutes, then 10 minutes off so the liquid can reduce and until all the vegetables are nice and soft and break apart easily. At this point you can pre-heat the oven to around 180 degrees Celsius.

Add a little more seasoning to taste for the pie filling, then remove the bay leaves and spoon into your pie dish.

Roll out the pastry and cover the pie dishes and seal with a fork edge, or however you fancy! I like to make tiny bite-size pastry rolls with any extras which are good for plying guests or housemates getting impatient about dinner! (To do this just roll out the extra scraps of pastry into a rectangle and spread anything you like- mango chutney, bbq sauce, even ketchup, across one side. Roll up into a swiss-roll shape and then cut into slices, then place on a tray and pop in the oven for about 10-15 minutes while the pie is cooking. Messy, sure, but tasty.)

Brush on a little soy milk on the top of the pies to add a glaze, and then cook in the oven for about 20-30 more minutes, until the pastry has risen and is a golden-brown colour.

In the mean time you can now prepare anything else to go alongside the pie and track down/beg/borrow/steal the strongest mustard you can find, which tastes perfect alongside the slightly sweet squash and flaky pastry.

Dreams can come true: the vegan pain au chocolat

Word on the proverbial vegan streets had been going around for some time that Jus-Roll also do croissant and pain au chocolat pastry that is vegan. My friend Richard managed to track some down way before I did and I saw how his eyes glazed over when I asked him what he did for breakfast one Saturday. I didn't believe him at first, there was just no way. It had to be some kind of vegan urban myth, like edible vegan macaroni cheese. Sure, it sounds like it's possible but then reality kicks in and you're stuck with a load of sunflower seeds soaking on your desk at work that will never make anything resembling a roux sauce.

So I hadn't eaten anything resembling a croissant for over a year when I finally managed to make a batch last weekend. The thing is, there's just no way of making this not sound cheesy: they taste like heaven. £2 a-pop-heaven.

The instructions are pretty easy to follow on the box, I just added a glaze of soy milk on top of the dough to make them a little crispier on the outside. I had to check back to the box and then Jus Roll's website in disbelief just to double check they really were vegan. Then I ate four, and went off to buy more. Saturday well spent I say.