Spelt Saturdays: Chicken and leek pie

This week saw me plunge into slightly more adventurous pastry baking.

Having been on a local shopping binge earlier in the week, I had chicken in the fridge from the local butchers that needed using up, and I wanted to give it more than a roast or fry like I normally do.

Mostly following a recipe from the BBC, I made chicken and leek pie, making a last minute dash to Tesco to buy some of the less obvious ingredients.

I simmered the chicken thighs for an hour with some onions, celery, thyme and seasoning. Using that time to make the pastry, I mixed it in a similar method to that of last week, but in greater quantities as this needed the pastry to cover the top too (maybe one day I will remember to take a picture of this).

Getting the chicken thighs out of the pan, the stock was poured into a jug and used later as part of the sauce filling, the rest was discarded.

The leeks were fried off and mixed in with the stock, parsley, creme freche and mustard. Bacon was meant to be part of this but I completely forgot to add the cooked bacon I already had.

Cutting the chicken into small chunks, I added this to the frying pan and mixed it all together. Ripping a part of the pastry away from the main ball, I set that aside and pressed the remainder into the pie dish, flattening it out and scraping away excess.

Mixing the two components together, it was pretty exciting to see an hour and a half worth of cooking come into shape.

I rolled out the rest of the pastry and coated it with more spelt flour, then drape it over the pie. I didn't make fancy leaves like the recipe told me to, but I did make sufficient incisions for the air to circulate all the way through. Popping it in the oven for half an hour at gas mark 7 made it come out looking golden and fresh.

I didn't have enough time to let it cool before heading out for yoga, but it was the most welcome coming home gift I could have given to myself. I was a little nervous that the exterior would blow the interior out of the water, but it was the perfect slight comfort I had hoped for, the seasoning all blending together perfectly and the chicken being tender and flavourful.

The pastry stuck again but I think it's partly due to my inadequate pan lining than something to do with the spelt, but only time will tell.

Sophie's rating: 9
Chelsea's rating: 9

So Long and Thanks For All The Bread

This post has been a long time coming, just like the decision I made in the summer to cut out wheat.

Having been misdiagnosed with coeliac disease when I was younger, I spent most my childhood without gluten. It wasn't a misdiagnosis on the "what the hell were they thinking?" level, as even after five years without wheat, the two week 'cheat' period on holiday in Florida when I was 9 saw my stomach balloon but my overall body weight go down (while my entire family gained weight, God bless American food).

When I was a teenager though, I saw all the sausage rolls, doughnuts, pasties, pasta, burgers, sandwiches, and convenience food forbidden to me, and started sneaking more and more. A slice of garlic bread here, a Krispy Kreme doughnut there.

It didn't really seem to be having an effect, so I plunged into a full on gluten diet, and my dietician discharged me pretty soon after, saying that if I had any form of coeliac disease, it was lying very dormant.

As university went on I found myself more and more tired, and after graduating it soon became a daily struggle to get out of bed and go to work. But I figured it was just working life. Fatigue comes hand in hand with having a heart condition, and I had no means of measuring my tiredness with that of other people, so I figured I'd just get on with things.

However, this summer I went to a BBQ where my friend was talking about how horrifically tired she felt all the time before being diagnosed with coeliac disease. She was describing the fog in her brain that made her thoughts slower and her inability to find energy for simple tasks. Everyone exclaimed how horrible that sounded.

The penny dropped. My wheat intolerance had resurfaced.

Pasta now being a big staple of my "yes, I cook at home" diet, I really didn't want it to be true. I tentatively avoided gluten for a week, and suddenly I was thinking clearly, getting out of bed within reasonable times on my days off, and finding I still had a lot more energy left over after I'd finished a task.

I went back to the doctors for a blood test, convinced my dormant coeliac had returned after reading accounts of these type of things on the internet. It hadn't.

But in the six weeks of eating gluten required for a coeliac test, the fog had returned, and as hard as it was to say goodbye to easy meals, I felt a lot better again.

It's been almost two months since I've eaten a significant amount of wheat, and when I can't get out of bed in the mornings now, I know it's just pure laziness. So, long live my gluten-free diet. Though I will miss you so much, burritos.