I went to a lot of festivals last summer, one of the best was the Green Man. It chucked it down solidly for 3 days and I got covered in mud, but I saw some amazing bands, had a brilliant time wandering around aimlessly bumping into random friends here and there, and they had pies. Pie Minister pies. Mmm mmm mmm. When I got back I thought ‘mmm… pie minister pies… yummy tasty pie minister pie… I want one’. So I went down to Wet and Wild (actually called Wild at Heart, but I prefer the idea of cows, so free range and organic they get their own water theme park- mooweeeeeeee!), bought some cheese and eggs and looked at their lovely range of pie minister pies. I felt like Charlie looking at the chocolate through the sweet shop window. Ahhh. So anyway instead of buying one I decided just to look at the ingredients of the Heidi Pie and well basically rip them off. It is pretty handy that stuff like this has to list each and every one of their ingredients. You can have a guess at the festival, but the sneaky sweet chilli sauce- I recon it’s the secret ingredient that makes the pie.

Anyway, I’d made this copy pie a while ago and decided this would be a good one for Laura’s Lessons. I’ve never seen anyone so excited about making a pie! Crazy. Mind she’s a pretty excitable girl. The pie we made was a bit different from Heidi Pie, we had a few ingredients missing and added a few that weren’t in the original,but the final pie, the “Laura Pike Pie(k)” was as good if not better.

Laura Pike Pie(k)

For the pastry:

• 16oz flour
• 8oz butter
• a bit of water

For the filling:

• Various root veg: a parsnip, 2 sweet potatoes, a couple of carrots, normal potatoes – about 4
• A red onion
• Fresh thyme, about 5 sticks
• Sweet chilli sauce
• Goats cheese 200g
• Olive oil
• Garlic, 4 chunky chunks

1. Peel all the root veg and chop into bite size pieces. Put all except potatoes into a roasting tray, put potatoes in water and boil.
2. Slice the red onion from root to tip and scatter over root veg for roasting, also put in the chunks of garlic, maybe cut in half, the thyme and good swirl of olive oil and pepper. Mix it all around a bit to coat, and put in oven (at about 220) until start to brown (will be about 20 mins or so).
3. While veg are cooking make the pastry. Put the flour in a big mixing bowl, chop the butter into small chunks and rub in with fingertips until the mixture becomes like bread crumbs. Gradually add some water, it will not take much water, I’ve not measured it exactly (surprise), but even for this much pastry it will only take about 8-12 tbsp. I think the idea is to add as little water as possible while being able to roll the pastry out without it falling apart. So just add a few spoons at a time, mix round with a knife first, then work on with hands.
4. Divide the pastry into two, one part should be bigger than the other, to make the base. Roll out the base pastry, measure against the dish you are putting the veg into.I have no idea what size it will be, just look at the veg you’ve prepared and get a dish they will all fit in is usually what I do. Line the dish with the pastry, slide a knife around the edge to neaten, and roll the other piece out for the top.
5. When the potatoes are pretty much cooked and the veg in the oven are browning, take them all out and mix together in the pastry base.
6. Pour some sweet chilli sauce over the veg, just use as much as however spicy you like things, and then get the goats cheese, cut into chunks and spread around the top, push into the veg mix a bit.
7. Lay the other piece of pastry over the top, slice around the edges to neaten and press around the edge with a fork to seal.
8. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BIT: Get the left over pieces of pastry you have sliced from around the pie and use to spell out “Laura”. Attach these to the pie with a little milk. The pie will not cook and will possibly poison you if you miss this stage out.
9. Put in the oven until it is cooked. Will take about 15 minutes.I think. I didn’t time it. It might take a bit longer than that.

Here’s a couple of pictures: Laura with her Pie(k) and the final cooked pie.