If you’re anything like Tooty (unlikely, but there must be one or two) you too will be the forgetful sort who arses about doing inconsequential stuff when you should be preparing that meal you so hate cooking – but have to because no one else will. Well, guess what, that happened to Tooty, only today. There he was, thoroughly enjoying himself, doing something that didn’t need doing, when the clock chimed – to remind him that time was of the essence. Something needed cooking, and it needed cooking now. Enter Tooty the Chef…
No time for planning: action was needed. And action it got – whatever ‘it’ was. Straight out of the fridge, an onion was rapidly diced…
This was quickly followed by some breakneck carrot shaving…
and dicing into quite large lumps. As were some sweet potatoes…
Already an idea had burst with incandescence from the fertile mind of the aging gastronome..,.
Pork fillet and pre-made puff pastry. Tooty the Chef was gonna make a pie sort of thing. So it was time to trim off the nasty fatty bits of the pork fillet…
…and cut it into slices…
…which, in turn, were reduced to lumps approximately twice the size of the sweet potato chunks…
…coz everyone knows that meat cooks waaaay quicker than sturdy root vegetables.
Next up, the pastry invited an assault of the rolling pin kind…
Sadly this meant that Tooty the Chef had to re-injure his problematic shoulder by reaching high into the wall cupboard for some flour…
…which resulted in unprintable expletives that might have included, “Bum”, “Arse”, and “Deary me, that did hurt so, I don’t know what to do.”
But, naturally, he quickly overcame the agony, and before you could say: “Forget it bladder: I’m not going to the toilet until this job is finished”, his quicksilver fingers were rolling out the pastry…
Then a thought struck. It was a fundamental sort of thought. It went: “Ugh, whatta my gonna cook this in?” Time to go searching the cooking crockery cupboard that his late wife kept so well stocked, and which he is yet to clear out…
Please note fabulous yellow trousers. From this angle, I bet you’re glad he no longer cooks sans ligerie. Well there were quite a few bowls and stuff that were microwave and dishwasher-proof. But only one that was oven-proof. Like it or not, all the ingredients would have to fit inside it. Using the bowl as a template, Tooty the Chef cut two circles of pastry…
One, he placed in the bottom of the bowl…
After all, he did describe this as a ‘pie sort of thing’, not actually a pie.
A decision was then required. What spices to add to the ingredients? Hmmm, tricky. So he tried pot luck and selected some Spanish stuff intended for chimichurri…
…which he mixed in with the onion, sweet potato, carrot, and pork. He then rammed the whole lot into the bowl…,
…and laid the second circle of pastry on top – whilst using the left-overs to seal the edge and create a wonderful central decoration that wouldn’t have disgraced Leonardo Di Vinci…
Here it is in a moodier light…
The speckles in the pastry are some of the spices that stuck to his hands. He didn’t wash them off before applying the top: he doesn’t approve of waste. Naturally the bowl was eased into a pre-warmed (and maxxed-out) oven, for (he estimated) fifty-five minutes…
Fifty-five minutes later…
Yum, or what! A drop of beef gravy, and voila...
See, cooking aint so bad. It doesn’t have to take hours. Give it a go. Let your imagination loose. Take a chance with the ingredients. The result will always be palatable to someone – even if it’s only the dog. He hates to admit it, but Tooty the Chef has found that cooking can almost be rewarding.
Tooty Nolan: Languishing Somewhere Between Clever and Stupid 