Homity Pie - fab for a Picnic

Monday this week I headed off to work to deliver a training course and dh stayed home with the kids as it was an occasional day. The summer seems to have arrived and thus dh headed out to one of our beautiful local parks and took a picnic for the kids. I had been lucky enough to receive a picnic hamper and some goodies so we used some of the products as a joint effort to make sure they had a scrumptious lunch packed.

On Sunday I took the Flora Buttery and made a pastry case for our family classic of Homity pie and then Monday morning dh (and Miss M) put together some easy pasta salads to go with it using Colman's BBQ sauce, Hellmann's classic mayonnaise and Maille Dijon mustard with honey.

Picnics are such fun and you can take so many more interesting foods with you, rather than sandwiches. Have a look at this recipe for muffin tin frittatas. 

If you fancy making a Homity Pie for your family, then check out how - 

Make yourself a batch of rich shortcrust pastry, I always make mine with half wholemeal and half white flour for a good nutty taste. Flora buttery gives richness to this pastry. Put the pastry in the fridge in clingfilm for at least 1/2 hr to rest.  Then bring it out and allow it to warm a little before rolling it on a  floured surface and lining a large flan dish, like this -

You need to bake the pastry blind for 20 minutes at 180 degrees, so cover it in greaseproof paper and use something like beans, lentils or rice and keep them to use again and again.

While the pastry is baking, peel your potatoes and chop them into 1cm cubes and peel and chop your onions.  I am totally rubbish at quantities so I just guess each time, I probably use about 6 medium spuds and 4 medium onions.

Par boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes.

Use some more of the Flora Buttery to saute the onions until they are translucent and tender, I like them with an extra bit of flavour and allow them to caramelise a little. Layer the onions into the par-cooked pastry case and then add some frozen peas and the cubed potatoes.

Mix a carton of double cream, 3 eggs and some grated cheese up together.  Then pour this all over the potato, onion and pea mixture - letting it drip right through. Put some more cheese on the top before you bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.  You can leave it a little longer if you like a more browned and crispy top!

and voila vegetarian Homity Pie - it tastes so much better than it looks here.  I had some for my tea with a nice green salad.

I'm entering my recipe for Homity Pie for for @UnileverKitchen's #PicnicChallenge. Thanks so much for the fab hamper basket you sent through to us, I'm looking forward to using this a lot when we move to our new home in a couple of weeks - it will be perfect!