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.

Maltby Street Market and spicy squash soup

On Saturday, against my toes' better judgement, I braved the freezing winds with Keelan and Naomi to visit Bermondsey's Maltby Street market and the Ropewalk. Plenty of black filter coffee, stall holders with battery-heated socks and a swift trip to the Kernal Brewery's store meant we were able to stand the cold for a grand total of one hour before heading to the Design Museum to defrost our fingers. 

Still shivering the day after, I made this spicy squash and potato soup with plenty of chili for a perfect snow-day lunch. I didn't manage to save any of the soup back (there seemed to be a continuous depletion of stocks throughout the afternoon...) but this would be great to freeze and defrost for lunches midweek.

Serves about six, or enough for a lot of lunches!
Ingredients

600g potatoes, peeled and chopped
350g squash, peeled and chopped
1 large onion, diced
2 chilis, chopped
1 tsp marjoram
400ml vegetable stock
2 tsp chili flakes (plus a little more for seasoning)
Glugs of vegetable/olive oil
salt
pepper

Sweat the onion in a large pan with the oil. Add in the marjoram, fresh chilies and dried chili flakes. Prepare the vegetable stock, then add the potatoes, squash, seasoning and stock to the pan, and bring to the boil.

Allow to simmer for around 30 minutes, until both the squash and potato are completely cooked through.

Turn off the heat and use a hand blender or mixer to blend the soup to a rich consistency, leaving it as chunky as you like. I added about 200 ml of water at this point to thin it down a little.

Bring back to a simmer, add pepper to taste and you're done.