Sweet Potato Mash, Chicken & Mushroom Sauce

1 Large Sweet Potato (roughly the length of your forearm)
2 Small potatoes
1 clove of garlic, crushed
6 sage leaves
dash of milk
pepper
salt

1 large diced onion
olive oil
1 bay leaf

4 chicken thigh fillets
8 button mushrooms, sliced (these could be replaced with something like Swiss Browns or another mushroom with more kick in it)
5 sprigs of thyme (just the leaves)
1 cup of chicken stock
1 tsp of cornstarch

1. Peel and slice the potatoes. Put the potatoes, sage leaves and clove of garlic in a pot of heavily salted cool water and bring it to the boil.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, heat a good slurp of olive oil in a fry-pan and cook the onions and bay leaf until the onions are translucent.
3. Into the onions, put the chicken fillets out flat and remove the bay leaf.  Brown them in the pan.
4. Remove the chicken and then put in the mushrooms.  When they are starting to soften and change colour, put in the stock to deglaze the pan. When the pan has deglazed, add in the cornstarch to thick the sauce up.
5. Drain the potatoes (leaving in the garlic), take out the sage leaves and add in a good amount of cracked pepper. Crush the potatoes with a fork or potato masher. Then add a dash of milk and make it into a moderately fine mash.  Force it through a sieve to remove the last of the lumps.

Serving:
(I'd recommend you put boiled peas with it)
Put out a small pile of sweet potato mash, the chicken on top then surround it with peas before putting the mushroom sauce over the top of it all.

A Sort of Cornish Pastie

3 fist-sized potatoes (pick a starchy variety), sliced into thin pieces
125g of beef mince
1 fist-sized onion (diced)
1 carrot, finely sliced
2 small zuchinis (courgettes), finely sliced
1 fist sized tomato
1 clove of garlic, grated/minced/crushed
1 bouquet garni (mine had a lot of sage, thyme and a bay leaf)
1 tsp beef stock powder
1 tsp potato starch
3 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg, whisked (for an egg wash)

Method

1. Put the potatoes into well salted water and boil them.  You should boil them fairly vigorously and keep them in the water while you make the rest of the mixture.  Preheat an oven to 180C.
2. Fry off the onion in olive oil, they should go a nice translucent and slightly coloured colour.  Then add in the zuchini and sweat it down a bit (it should start changing from white to a gentle yellow). Add in the carrot and the bouquet garni and leave it all for a minute or two on a fairly high heat.
3. Put in the garlic in along with the mince and beef stock powder. You should try avoid using actual stock since it will make the mixture too wet.  Brown off the meat.
4. Add in the potato starch and stir it through thoroughly. This mixture should get fairly thick and sticky. You want to keep it on the heat until most of the liquid is gone. The drier you can make this mix without burning it the better.
5. Take out the puff pastry and allow it to thaw so it is pliable.
6. Take the potatoes out of the water and dry-mash them. Mix the potato into the meat mix and keep it on a low heat so that it gets quite dry.
7. Put a large spoonful into the middle of the puff pastry sheets and fold it over.  You can make it any shape you like, but the 'traditional' pastie shape is a semi circle with a nice pinched-over edge if you're any good at manipulating pastry.  Once it has been folded over, wash the whole thing with egg wash and bake in the oven until the pastry goes golden brown and puffed up nicely.