Pasty Making

Pasties have a long history in my family, and for the Cornish people. Miners from Cornwall spread their popularity all over the world among the mining communities. (For the full history of the Pasty  visit the Cornish Pasty Association.) The pasty tradition has been passed down from my father's mother, but since we have a lot of miners on the family tree, I have no doubt that both sides ate lots of pasties.

Our Grandma loves to tell the story of being sent to school with money for "Pasty Day". During lunch break she would walk down to the church and buy pasties for dinner for the whole family. Her Grandma would usually be there peeling bunches and bunches of onions for all the pasties.

Pasties are a very simple food, meat and root vegetables held together in a hand pie by crust. In our house they are pure comfort food!
We really don't have a recipe it is so simple. Our rule of thumb is just about equal proportions of ground beef, peeled and chopped potatoes and grated carrots, plus a few chopped up onions. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl and add generous amounts of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Using your favorite pie crust recipe, roll dough in 12" by 12" pieces. Place about 2 cups of filling on each piece of dough, fold in half and crimp edges. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until potatoes are soft and meat is done. Serve with ketchup or gravy or plain.

We anxiously await cooler autumn weather so we can have a Pasty Day! The stove always ends up being on for at lest three hours as we don't like to skimp on pasties! Once we get started we might as well make enough to go around a few times. Our usual output ranges between 4-5 dozen. But we have a system and once started, it doesn't take long. The hard part is waiting the hour long baking time! With the wonderful aroma filling the house, it is hard not to be hungry.