Welcome to my Food and Fitness Frenzy Blog!

Welcome to my First Blog!

Hi there! Welcome to my Food and Fitness Frenzy. My name is Loic and this is my first ever blog. I don't have much experience with this stuff but I thought I'd give it a go, as it seems like it could be fun. I was motivated to start this blog by my girlfriend who also blogs. You can check her out here Mlle KarenAnne. This blog will feature recipes and tasty food stuff, as well as fitness info, workouts etc since these are two things that I am passionate about. I'm not an amazing cook, nor am I in amazing shape, but hopefully this blog will chronicle my journey to master chef and fitness god! Just kidding, but this should be fun :)

Before I start, a little background on myself. I'm from Kent, England, but I'm currently living in Stockholm, Sweden as I am studying for a masters in general management. I'm half French on my mother's side and my name is French in case you were wondering. 

Enough about me. Let's get straight into this! Here's a kickass recipe for steak pie that I tried out yesterday. It turned out really well so I'd recommend it. I've never made any kind of pie before so this was totally new to me. Here's the recipe:  

Ingredients:

Approx 1 kg of beef chopped

500 g puff pastry (you can make your own if you want but I used ready made pastry)

250 g carrots

2 onions (I used red onions)

2 garlic cloves

500 g of mushrooms

3 tbspoons of flour

A pinch of salt and pepper

3 tbspoons of olive oil

A knob of butter

300 ml beef stock

1 tbspoon of tomato puree

1 tbspoon of balsamic vinegar

Thyme

1. Put the chopped beef into a bag with the flour and a pinch of salt and pepper. Shake well.

2. Put half of the beef into a casserole with 1 tbspoon of olive oil and fry it on medium heat for about 10 minutes until its golden brown. Put the meat in a bowl and use some cold water to rinse out any remaining bits from the casserole and add to the meat.

3. Repeat this for the rest of the beef. If you want to make a small pie you can do it all in one go, but for a large pie you can't really cook the meat properly if you shove it all in together.

4. Chop the carrots, onions and garlic and add them to the casserole with 1 tbspoon of oil. Fry them for a few minutes until they start to soften. Then add all the beef to the casserole.

5. Add the stock, the puree, the balsamic vinegar and the thyme to the bowl. If necessary, add more water if the beef is not fully covered, as this keeps it from going dry. Now bring the stew to the boil and then cover and simmer on a low heat for about 45-60 minutes.

6. While this is cooking, chop the mushrooms and fry them with butter, salt and pepper for a few minutes until they turn golden brown. Add them to the stew when its done simmering.

7. Now for the pastry. First dust a large pie dish with some flour and then stretch out the pastry over the dish. Add the pie filling and then wrap the pastry over the top so it is completely covered.

8. Cut some holes in the top of the pie to let out steam and brush it over with a beaten egg.

9. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until its golden brown.

There you have it! You can also add ale to this recipe if you want to make it a steak and ale pie. It was very tasty and I'll have to try it again with homemade pastry, but I thought I'd play it safe on my first go making pie. The only downside to this recipe is it takes several hours to make, so start early.

Comment if you have any pie making tips or any recipes of your own you wanna share. Hope you enjoyed reading!