Preparation of the little one – Phase 1 : Corned beef pie

I had a brief and alarming thought this week that I’m not sure if my daughter could survive in the outside world without me (or other adult help). Let me quantify this. What I mean is that in just over a year there is a very likely possibility that she will leave home to go to university or similar and I wonder if she is ready.

Immediately on sharing this with her, she informed me that it was my most important job to prepare her (how had I neglected this thought?) so with this in mind we have started with immediate effect.

Firstly cooking, and with gusto, there are some basic recipes that she should be armed with before being released into the wild.

• A good basic pie
• Spaghetti bolognese
• A cake – already ticked off the list
• A full roast dinner
• Chilli
• Pancakes
• A ‘not blow your head off’ curry

There are probably more but this is a start.

Corned beef pie – slight caveat here. I was never a huge fan of tinned meat in any shape or form even pre-vegan (I think I found a cow’s arse-hole on my plate once) but it is a family recipe that has been around for a good few generations so with this in mind, Phase 1 of Preparation commenced. I received the text as I was about the leave work that I should stop off and buy ingredients, which I duly did but WHEN THE HELL did Bovril get so expensive? £3.50 for a jar of the black stuff?

Granted it took a little longer to make than normal and I was repeatedly told off for helping interfering but the end result was incredibly good. There were moments of panic when the oven, as it is inclined to do at really critical times, decided to stop burning its blue flame and help was mustered, there was also a blind stumble to the sink, knife in hand, when she became overcome with onion fumes and was rendered sightless, but the process was otherwise relatively smooth.

Finished result:

Still to cover are topics include (but not limited to):

• The basics of clothes washing, colour separation and drying tips
• Home hair dye
• Budgeting
• Staying safe
• Travelling & public transport
• Cleaning & tidying – a tidy house is a tidy mind
• Driving (imminent)
• Crumb management – only ever acceptable to have crumbs on the side immediately after buttering toast after which they should be eradicated
• Emergency operation off a stop-cock (I don’t even know this…. note to self… summon extra help on this)
• Defrosting food and not managing to incur food poisoning
• The perils of raw chicken and the management thereof

Better get my finger out.

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