Simple, hearty, scrumptious eats do wonders to soothe the soul, writes

The past few weeks have been a real mixed bag of emotions, physical symptoms, fatigue, pain and nausea. I struggle sometimes to have the clarity of thought on how to describe exactly what my life is really like on a day-today basis. While continually dealing with the symptoms of Crohn’s, I try to suppress and fight negative emotions, putting a brave face on to try to appease others as much as myself. My kitchen remains my haven – I cook and I forget. I love seeing my family enjoy what I create. It makes me happy. I like to play around with recipes and make them my own.

I have enjoyed how many people have reached out to share their own journey with me since starting this column and my Facebook page, and when people tell me how much they like my recipes, it makes me smile. I have learned so much from others just by them sharing their stories, too.

This month, my cooking has been plain and simple, and I’ve stuck mainly to chicken and seafood dishes. I am also trying to keep budgeting in mind with prices going through the roof.

I’ve tried to be smart with my cooking. For example, when I bought a whole chicken, I used it to make soup and picked the meat to make a pie. I’ll make a curry next time. I’ve also tried cooking more at once, stretching dinners to lunch the next day. My seafood spaghetti was a delicious midweek dinner that made for a lovely cold lunch the next day.

But my chicken pie was my favourite this month. It is simple. A few people were asking for the recipe, so thought I would share it with you all.

For the chicken pie (Serves 4-6) Ingredients: All of the white meat from a whole cooked chicken, chopped; Two carrots, peeled and chopped thinly; One medium/large onion, chopped; One celery stalk, chopped; Two cloves of garlic, crushed; 1 pint of chicken stock; 3 tbsp plain flour; 50g of butter; A pack of ready-made puff pastry; 1 egg, beaten.

Method: Add your chopped chicken to the pie dish. Then, melt butter in a pan and add your chopped vegetables. Stir so they are coated in the butter. Cover and cook on a low heat for around 10 minutes.

Remove the lid of the pan and add your flour, stirring well, then leave to cook for a further few mins to cook out the flour. Add your stock in stages, stirring well throughout to prevent lumps. Now pour this over your chicken in your pie dish.

Next, roll out your pastry big enough to cover the top of your pie dish and cover your dish, putting two holes in the pastry to let the steam out.

Brush the pastry with a beaten egg, then cook in the oven at around 160C Fan/180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for around 20-25 minutes. Serve warm.

A chicken pie helps stretch your weekly food shop.