Dear Reader,

Hi there 😊 How are you? 

Canberra emerged out of lockdown on Friday (2021-10-15), well, technically, it was Thursday evening, but the functional changes took effect on Friday.

Not much has changed for me. Given I have no one to visit and no one comes to my place, no change there. I’m not that interested at this stage in eating out; as much as I’d like to see small business people keep earning an income, my contribution will effectively be nil. Not because I don’t want to, but because my interest is not contributing to any crowding anywhere. Crowding increases the risk of infectious disease transmission, and it’s not limited to COVID-19. 

I know some immunologically vulnerable people, and the thought of contributing to spreading infection is enough to stay at home as much as possible.

Ingredients

• Chicken thigh meat
• Leek
• Mushrooms
• Thyme
• White wine or cooking sherry
• Cream
• Cheese
• Puff pastry
• Egg
• Radish
• Fennel
• Red onion
• Parsley
• Celery
• Lemon zest
• Lemon juice
• Olive oil

Instructions

1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
2. Slice all the vegetables
3. The choice of chicken can be a supermarket purchases roast chook or chicken meat you’ve previously cooked, or you can cook some chicken meat specifically for this meal. I had cooked some chicken thighs in a pressure cooker last week, and I used that meat for this dish. 
4. Heat a skillet with some neutral oil. I use Queensland nut oil.
5. Sauté the leeks and mushrooms and then add in the chicken meat and heat it through. Add in the thyme leaves too.
6. Depending on how much chicken, leek, and mushrooms you used, you may find you have too much for your pie dish. Please remove what you won’t need and aliquot it to a container for refrigeration and use at another time.
7. Turn off the heat and allow the filling to cool a little. 
8. Place the filling into your pie dish. If you’re a wise cook, you’ll lubricate the inside surfaces of your pie dish with some butter or oil. While I make no claims to any wisdom, I used butter because I’ll use any excuse to use some butter.
9. Add a little cream and some grated cheese and mix it through the filling.
10. As an optional step, add a layer of basil leaves for a pleasant surprise when you cut through the pie.
11. If you’re a keen and competent cook, you can make your puff pastry. Given that Yummy Lummy (i.e., me) is all about convenience cooking for singletons, I buy puff pastry from a supermarket brand.
12. Thaw a sheet of puff pastry while that is happening, turn on the oven to about 180 °C. 
13. Cover the pie dish with the pastry and crimp the edges.
14. Beat the egg and, with a brush, ‘paint’ the pastry.
15. Place the pie dish into the oven and cook until the pastry is a golden brown colour.
16. While the pie is cooking, prepare the salad and dress with lemon juice and olive oil.
17. Remove the pie from the oven and admire your handiwork.
18. Take a portion of the pie and place it on a plate and add some of the salad.
19. Praise God for the day and thank Him for the food.
20. Eat and enjoy.

A word about love

It’s been a pretty good week. Work has been great. While it is busy, I have fantastic workmates who make everything we do enjoyable.

I’ve been enjoying listening to some audiobooks by Sam Allberry and sermons by Tim Keller on podcasts. I was also excited by last Sunday’s zoom church service. We’ve started a series on Peter’s letters. Coincidentally, the sermon series I’m listening to by Tim Keller is on Galatians and has a bit to say about Peter.

In one of the books this week, Sam mentioned a well-known passage of scripture commonly quoted at weddings.

‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ‘

1 Corinthians 13:1–7.

He suggested comparing if we measure up to God’s standard, we should replace the word “love” with our name. I tried it, and let’s say it wasn’t good. 😳

The thing I did which did make sense was to replace “love” with “Jesus”. 

Final thoughts

1. How do you feel about the combination of chicken and leeks in a pie?
2. Do you make puff pastry from scratch?
3. Would you immediately get out and about after lockdown ends?

Feel free to leave a comment 😊

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