Xi'an

Oh today is my lucky day! I've been waiting for so long to get to this post but I had to get through Hangzhou first which was difficult. I think it has something to do with the fact that there was no good food associated with it!!

The old town of Xi'an is compact and quaint. Yes, there are lots of people but you should be used to that by now! And the main attractions is... the FOOD (Ah! And you thought it had something to do with terracotta warriors, didn't you?). Oh I so wish that we had stayed longer so that I could have eaten more.

Getting Around:

There are plenty of options here. As usual there are taxi's everywhere but they might not take you if you are not travelling for a long enough distance. There is a subway that runs north south but if you have luggage it's not the easiest to get to from the old train station, which is where the sleeper trains arrive. The high speed trains come into a different station further north of town and this station is hooked up to the subway. The buses are not crowded and are pretty easy to use.

Of course you are here to see the terracotta warriors which are on the outskirts of Xi'an so you'll need to either take the bus or hire a taxi to go there. There are air conditioned buses that leave from the old train station and they are very comfortable and reasonably priced. Read about our experience for some insider tips on catching the bus :)

Hotel:

We stayed at the Jiahe Hotel which goes under many different names!! That totally confused me and I was really worried that I might have been hoodwinked. The reason is, that just like in Shanghai, Expedia has the hotel positioned incorrectly on the map! This 陕西省西安市碑林区南大街4F伊莎美尔美容院, cut and paste into Google maps, will give you the correct location.
The hotel was nice and clean. The staff were grumpy when they were busy but otherwise they were helpful. They spoke English, which was nice. Don't take the breakfast the other alternatives are fantastic and cheap.
Our room looked something like this (without the couch, with a dinning table by the window and two double beds):

The windows are thin and don't quite close properly so there is a bit of noise from the street. A great price for four people, plenty of space and the best location ever. During our stay we only used motorized transport to get to and from the train station.

Day 12

So arriving refreshed and well slept in Xi’an we decided to catch a taxi to our hotel. It proved to be a challenge even with the address written in Chinese and my husband speaking the language (albeit brokenly). Most of the drivers claimed to not know where it was. We think that the hotel was just too close by and they wanted to get a better hire. This seemed to be a common problem all across China and it only got worse when we got to Beijing. Finally we found someone who was willing to take us and he was really nice. The hotel we stayed at is in an area that is difficult to access with a taxi (at least not without driving around in circles) so we were dropped off on the main road and pointed in the right direction. We had no idea where we were supposed to go and could not figure out where the front door was to the hotel. The best thing to do is to walk around the big shopping mall on the corner and eventually you will see it since it looks out onto the mall (or alternatively inform yourself before you go by pasting the Chinese address above into an online map).

Of course we were too early so our rooms were not ready so we left our bags at the reception and went out to explore. First of all we walked south along the main north-south road, appropriately named "south road" on the southern side of the bell tower.  A short walk brought us to the city walls and gate. On one side was a small side street with loads of shops selling calligraphy stuff. At the beginning of the street we picked up some noodles and tofu for lunch from a friendly street vendor. Be careful almost all the food in Xi’an is hot. And when I say hot I mean HOT! Ask for no chili … it will still be hot.

We took our noodles up to the city walls and ate under the only patch of trees on the wall overlooking the courtyard.

From here we had a nice view of everything. If you are lucky you might get to see an enactment of how people were greeted in years gone by when they entered the courtyard. My husband saw it last time he was in Xi’an but we did not. It’s apparently a bit like Disney Land and my husband thinks that it’s performed when the big tourist buses pull in.

After walking around a bit we decided to rent bikes and bike to the Northern gate. This was not as easy as it seemed because the office we first went to would not rent us bikes because our kids were too young. The minimum age is 10 years and although our eldest is 10 she does not look it. We were a bit bummed and wondered what we could do. We finally decided that my husband would go to the rental office on the other side of the gate and try to rent two tandem bikes. This was not a problem. With the kids and me not in sight they were happy to rent him two bikes. We left our 8 year old on a bench and told her to wait there until we had picked up the bikes. Neither of our two had a problem riding on the backs of the bikes. In fact they peddled way too fast for me and I had to keep shouting at them to stop pedaling, but I’m not too good at riding a bike.

We biked around the west side and stopped along the way to take in the old buildings inside the wall, which was an amazing contrast to the skyscrapers just outside the wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. 

Half way around there is a decent toilet which was welcome. We handed our bikes in at the north gate and headed down to the main street. We now had the option of taking the subway, catching a bus, or walking back to the hotel. We chose to stay out and walk back passing by the Muslim quarter on the way.

It’s a pretty long walk but don’t fear you cannot get hungry or thirsty along the way. There are so many cool places to buy food. We stopped at a place on a side road and got some bakery type stuff. We got a couple of large cookie like things and some bread like stuff. It was delicious. At that point we were wondering if it would be possible to go back to the place to get some more. This thought did not last long as we past a small shop that was making bread in a tandoori oven. This stuff not only looked delicious but it also tasted delicious. We bought a bread, sprinkled with sesame seeds, straight out of the oven. Oh! So delicious that my mouth is watering right now. 

On Maixian Street parallel to North Street

Our next culinary stop was at a sweet store where I bought a box of candied peanuts, sesame and goodness knows what else. Again delicious (on Beiyuanmen St.). Our journey continued and we walked along a small side street to get to the mosque. We had an off-line map to help us navigate our way there. There were so many side roads and so much to take in that we would have otherwise been lost. I was told it was a small mosque so we would not take long to look it over. The walk to it was amazing. There were so many cool looking things to eat. So many that we could not stuff in our bellies. We decided to come back and sample everything for dinner. Especially the crisps (chips) on a stick.

The mosque turned out to be anything but small! It was delightful to walk around the gardens and see the mixture of the cultures. Naturally Chinese culture was the dominant one. 

After the mosque we walked out towards the drum tower and back to our hotel so that we could check in. The bazaar between the mosque and the drum tower is very touristy and was not to our liking so we took a side street to get away from it and out into the open. At the hotel we were finally able to check in. The lady at the desk was really apologetic to us because they didn't have the room that we had booked. So she asked if we would mind terribly if we were given an upgrade!!! Of course we were devastated at the thought of a free upgrade!!

After settling in we headed out for dinner. We went back to Beiyuanmen St. where things were now bustling. And oh I can't even list all the things we tasted while walking down the street. 

Making Peanut Brittle

Quail Eggs on a Stick

Some Type of Candy

Stretching the Candy

Something Like Pittu

Tofu

Oh shoot! We didn't get to take a picture of the crisps on a stick. They were consumed too quickly!

Once we had walked the whole block plus more we were soooo stuffed. And not just stuffed, we also had bags with food in them. Wonderfully flavourful fried stuff, which we munched for days. Even though they lost their initial taste they were still good a couple of days later.

We were pooped and headed back to our hotel stopping only for a couple of photos of the illuminated bell tower.

 Day 13:

The next morning we were up early to make the trek out to see the famous warriors. My husband went out and purchased breakfast and lunch for us from a hole in the wall place (or should I say open air place) around the corner. The kids dinned on sesame balls and long doughnuts that we haven’t had since we left San Francisco. Everyone was in heaven. We packed up some vegetarian dumplings for lunch along with the left over goodies from last night and off we went. We asked at the front desk which bus to take to the train station and it turns out it stops right outside the hotel on the main road. Fantastic, it was a double decker bus! 

The terminal stop was the train station where the buses to the warriors leave. We crossed the road, went under the city walls and turned right. There was a long line but my husband had been here the year before on a conference and said the bus stop was quite far away. So we assumed that this line (which was worse than any Disney Land line I have ever seen) was for something else. However, as we got closer and closer to the bus stop we realized that we were wrong. This line was indeed to get to the warriors. Not willing to wait for so long we wondered up towards the private buses that were waiting for passengers. The first lady tried to sell us seats to all the sights and probably some shops too but when we explained that we ONLY wanted to see the warriors she pointed us to some other buses. We went over, confirmed that that is where they were going and got in. The bus was full of locals and I just hope we did not jump the line. The price was fractionally higher than what our guide book quoted but well worth not having to stand in that long line.

The ride was exciting with the bus driver bumping into another bus. Luckily he only lost his side mirror. Then the bus broke down!! Great we thought, but they were so, so nice. The bus conductor, who was female, apologized profusely and got out with us to take the next bus. The next bus was full but we all agreed that it would be better to stand the short way to the warriors in the air conditioned bus than to stand in the scalding heat waiting for the next. And who knows the next one might be full too.

Finally we arrived at the bus stop and took the long walk through the hawkers to the ticket counter. Again there were long lines that moved very quickly. Something that might be useful is that they had a large counter opposite the ticket counter for storing large luggage. This might be useful to know if you go to the warriors straight from the train, which was initially our plan but we didn’t know about the luggage storage.

You can either walk to the warriors or you can take an electric car. The electric car ride is very short and the walk is very long. Of course they make you walk a long way past all kinds of shops. Being on a budget we walked. Starving by the time we got through the first gate we stopped under some trees to eat our lunch. It didn’t seem common to picnic here. I thought that someone would come at any moment and tell us to get off the grass. But they didn’t. The only problem was the mosquitoes that smelled fresh blood and started to swarm around us. But we were ready for that and first sprayed ourselves with repellent.

After lunch we headed out to see the warriors. And I’ll just post some photos because there is not much to say except that they are truly amazing!!

Back to the bus and back to Xi’an. In Xi'an finding the bus back to the hotel was easy, it starts its route exactly where it stops it. This would have been useful for us to know (that’s why I’m putting it here!). Back at the hotel we refreshed ourselves and headed out for dinner. My husband had discovered a small hole in the wall noodle place last time he was in town so we went back there for dinner. The great thing was that you could pick what you wanted them to put in the soup. My girls were ecstatic: lots of thick noodles and tofu and NOTHING else, please. The cook was a bit perturbed by their orders but none the less he made the soup exactly as they said and they gobbled it all up. The whole adult sized portion! You could go in and sit inside but we preferred to sit on the side walk on the other side of the road on tiny little plastic stools. It was definitely an experience and the food was good too. Hot and fresh.

The Store on MaiXian St. (Cross Street: Dapiyuan)

Outdoor Seating across the Road (Indoor Seating also Available)

The Cooker

Enjoying the Noodle Soup

After dinner we had promised ourselves ice cream. We discovered this ice cream place the day before but were too full to eat any so we went there after dinner. Oh my, what heavenly ice cream. It was delicious and the flavours were from produce all around the province (okay there were some others too). The smallest portion was two scoops and they were big scoops. One topping of your choice comes with the ice cream and, get this, a cup of hot tea. I so wish we could have stayed longer but I had to find a toilet and they didn’t have one L

That was it for the day. Tiered and full we fell into bed.

Day 14:

Today was bell tower and drum tower day. We still hadn’t seen them! We managed to see both of the shows. The bell tower one was packed and although we could hear the musicians we could not see them. The drum tower was set up with a huge space at the front of the stage where all the kids went and sat. And the drumming, my it was wonderful. One of the lead drummers was female which we really enjoyed. The kids had a ball and listened intently standing at the side of the stage. Well worth watching. A pleasure to both the ear and the eye.

By now we had done all the usual sightseeing and the question was “what to do next?” If we’d been without kids we would have gone to see some more temples but the kids needed some time off. So we went to a mall that had an indoor ice rink on the topmost floor. The ice was not well kept but it was still a lot of fun. The room was not cold either. After skating around we went to find lunch. 

Being really hungry and a bit grumpy we took the first decently priced restaurant that we could find. It was not our type of place. All the staff were dressed up like 1950’s in Chicago, there were fairly lights all over the ceiling, the décor was all white, glass and chrome and the clientele looked all filthy rich. When we saw how over staffed they were we were rightly worried about how long the food would take to get to us. But it was still decent by European standards. The food was good but a bit pricey.

Leaving here we went to dunking doughnuts for dessert, walked around the streets a bit and did a bit of shopping at the lower end places (or at least our kids did). Then we picked up our packs from the hotel and headed to the train station to catch our train to Beijing, stocking up on noodle soup on the way.

Home-made Granola

My husband eats muesli almost every morning for breakfast. Unfortunately the kids and I don't touch it. "Unfortunately" because it is extremely good for you but I just can't swallow it and prefer my overly sugared, easily digestible, cereals instead. There is one thing we all eat and that is granola. Unfortunately (again) it is difficult to get good granola here in Germany. When you can get it, it has one of the following problems: it contains desiccated coconut (yuck!), it contains chocolate chunks (not for breakfast, no way!) or it is extremely expensive. So once we moved to Germany I had to start making granola at home. I haven't made it recently and I don't know why because it is very simple to make. But the muesli ran out yesterday and my hubby needs his fiber. [If you are wondering what happened today, well it was a public holiday so we had toast and fried eggs instead of cereal!]

So I made some this afternoon and figured I would share the recipe. Now I didn't come up with this recipe myself. The initial version was copied from a website and I no longer know which one so I can't cite it. But I think I've changed the recipe enough that it would be okay to post it again.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (300 g)	Brown Sugar
1/2 cup (150 ml)	Water
2 tsp	Vanilla Extract
1 tsp	Salt
8 cups (800 g)	Oats
1 cup	Sunflower Seeds
300 g	Sliced Almonds
200 g	Dried Cranberries

Method:

Set your fan oven to 120°C (conventional oven around 140°C / 280°F)

First mix together the brown sugar, water, vanilla and salt in a microwavable bowl. Some times I don't have brown sugar, or am frankly too stingy to pay the price for it. So instead I use white sugar with a teaspoon of "Goldsaft" which is something like molasses. You can use any type of syrup to make your sugar brown. If you are in Sri Lanka you could use coconut treacle, for example.

Stir a bit to combine and then put the bowl in the microwave and heat for 3 minutes. (Alternatively you could do this on a stove top.)

While the mixture is heating measure out the oats, sunflower seeds and the almonds, put them in a large mixing bowl and combine. In actual fact it does not matter what type of nuts you use. I could imagine that cashew nuts would taste wonderful as probably would peanuts. It's all a matter of taste and availability. This time I didn't have the usual sliced almonds but instead I had chopped almonds and some walnuts so that is what will be in our granola. You also don't have to worry too much about how much you put it. It is really all a matter of taste.

Carefully take your bowl out of the microwave and stir until all the sugar etc. is dissolved.

Then pour it over your oat nut mixture and mix till well combined.

Then spread the oats equally onto two baking trays lined with parchment paper. You can skip the parchment paper if you like, you will just have more to clean up. I don't think the oats will stick to your baking sheet. Make sure everything is evenly spread so that you ensure that your granola is crunchy

and stick it in the oven for about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes take out the trays, one at a time, and mix (turn) the granola so that it gets evenly  baked. Bake for a further 45 until crisp.

While the granola is baking chop the cranberries because they are a bit too big. Again like the nuts you can use any type of dried fruits for the granola. I had a half finished bag of cranberries and one of raisins so that is what went in today.

Once the granola is done, mix in the dried fruit and it is ready to eat. I can't tell you how long it keeps, we finish it within a week but I'm guessing you can keep it longer :)

Hangzhou - Day 9, 10 and 11

The ride to the islands confused us a bit. There are many places to hire boats. We got off at the Longxiangqiao (龙翔桥站) subway station and walked over to the river (passing the Gucci store!). The best one to take is the really fancy air-conditioned one that will take you to the island. What we didn't realize is that this is the ONLY fancy boat and it just goes to the island and back to the shore. It doesn't do a round trip.



Each route is run by different boats and they basically go back and forth. They also leave the island in different places. So wherever you arrived (unless you want to go back where you came from) is not where you need to catch the next boat. In the middle of the island is a place to buy food and drinks.

Don’t forget to see the reflecting moon thingy’s. Not much to look at but just don’t miss them.

The island is actually really pretty and it's a very nice walk around with lots of opportunities for nice photographs. You can also see the whole perimeter of the lake so its good to get a good orientation. For example, one of the pagoda's we wanted to see turned out to be on the top of a hill and because of the hill and the fact that the pagoda looked like all other pagoda's we decided not to visit it!

Catch the boat to north-western corner of the lake and visit the Quyuan Gardens. They are bounded by the lake, Beishan Rd. and Yanggongdi Rd. We were going to go here but didn't have time. I'll definitely go next time because it looks like a really beautiful place to visit especially in the summer.

You can then head back to Beishan Rd. and go and visit the Yuewang Temple. We enjoyed roaming around in this place although it does look like many of the other temples in China!

And of course my favourite photograph that I now use as a background on my smart phone:

All of this should be enough to fill up your day! But if it's not there are always the shopping malls to take in :)

Day 10:

I would suggest biking around the lake on day 10. That is what I had planned to do :( Was really ticked that I didn't get to do that especially since the girls had practiced AND they had kids bikes for rent. 

There are oodles of things to see around the lake, like:
Orioles Singing in the Willows 杭州--柳浪闻莺
Hangzhou Underwater World 杭州海底世界
Chinese Silk Museum 中国丝绸博物馆 (I really wanted to go and see this one)
Leifeng Xizhao (a pagoda on top of a hill)
Jingci Temple
Taiziwan Park
Viewing Fish at Flower Pond 花港观鱼. 

And if you have any energy left take a trip to the China Tea Museum (88 Longjing Lu) and drink Hangzhou's most famous tea "dragon well".

Day 11:

Take time to chill before you catch the night train to Xi'an.

Catching the overnight train was relatively simple. We just had to get to the main train station and find the right waiting area. There was no good food or drink in the waiting area so make sure you get something before you go through security. We had decided to have instant noodles for dinner. These things are great, everyone eats them. You just buy a Styrofoam soup bowl, they are available absolutely everywhere, and then all you have to do is find hot water. This is not a problem in China. Every (train) car has a tap which serves you “scalding” water. So all you do is take your bowl to the tap, open the lid halfway (very important), remove the foldable fork, fill the bowl with adequate water and then close the lid using the fork to hold the lid down. If you've no idea how to do that just look at all the other peoples bowls and copy them. After 5 minutes or so you have yourself a hot meal albeit not so tasty.

You can see the noodle bowls in the bottom left hand corner!

Overall the train was great. The one problem we had was that people smoke in the train. It’s a non-smoking train but no one objects to people smoking between the carriages. The only problem with that is that the trains are sealed because they are fully air-conditioned. The smoke invariably seeped back down the corridor and into the compartment via the vent under the beds. Not nice but once you are asleep you might not even notice it! Once the staff had put the lights out, at around 9:30 pm, it was amazingly quiet. No more loud movies, chatting, or cell phones ringing. We were totally amazed and all slept relatively well.

And now on to Xi'an. Probably where we had the most fun of all :)

Basic Pastry

Bored out of my brains waiting for my eldest to be done with her gymnastics practice. One of those bad deals where it’s too far to drive back home but the wait is long if I chose not to go grocery shopping, which is the case today. But there is a silver lining to every cloud and in this case it is a pastry recipe.

The pastry is really easy to make. My mother taught me how to make it and I’ve been making it for decades. Once my mum figured out that my pastry tasted the best I was stuck for life making pastry! I remember once being dragged to the Indian Consulate in Kandy, Sri Lanka to demonstrate how I made the pastry!! Eventually, I figured out that the only reason my pastry turned out well was because I had cold hands. As I said above there is always a silver lining to a cloud.

So the trick is keep everything super cold. If you have regular hands that means you need to stick them in some ice to keep them cold while you are making the pastry. Alternatively you could use a food processor or a pastry thingy but the pastry will never taste as good as if you made it by hand. I bought an expensive food processor specifically to make pastry and returned it within a couple of days because the pastry was not up to par. 

This amount will make the base for a 9” tart. For something bigger or a thicker crust use 8 oz. of flour.

Ingredients:

           6 oz     Flour

           3 oz     Cold butter

           ¼ tsp.  Salt

                      Cold Water

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and mix. Cut the butter up into small pieces and put it in with the flour.

If you need to keep the bowl cool (because you live in the tropics or have super warm hands) put it in an ice bed. Keeping it all cool is the key to good flaky pastry.

Now rub the butter into the flour using the tips of your fingers. It’s a bit difficult to explain how to rub the butter in but I’ll give it a try. First mix the butter in so that it is all coated with flour. Then get your hand(s) coated in the flour. Pick up some butter and flour with your fingers and balance it on your four fingers. Using your thumb rub the butter off back into the bowl. If you are unsure as to how to do this try it without anything in your hand. Just rub your four finger tips, starting at your pinky and moving up to your pointing finger, with the tip of your thumb. This is the action you need to use but with flour and butter in between. The pieces of butter will become smaller and smaller until you have something that looks like this. (Commonly called "looks like breadcrumbs").

Don’t forget to keep your hands cold. If you feel like the butter is melting in your hands then you are too warm and your pastry won’t be light and fluffy.

Next you need to add some water. Add a little bit at a time and stir it well into the flour. You might consider using a knife to do this. At some point you will notice that the pastry starts lumping together. At this point stick in your hand and try forming the pastry into a ball. It should stick nicely together but not be sticky. Very carefully form a nice ball. 

Cover in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest. Apparently dough needs to rest, but I have not figured out why yet!!

Once it's rested use it to make something like this:

Vegetarian Pot Pie

Oh, I was so craving for something wholesome and hot to eat!

The bright September sunshine had given way to clouds and there was a chill in the air and thus the craving. But there were other problems to be solved: like the ton of vegetables sitting in my fridge just begging to be eaten. I pulled them all out and found that I had quite a colourful array.

Remembering the taste of the chicken pie's my mother used to make when I was young, inspired me to turn the veggies into a pot pie (or pot pie's as it was since I don't have a proper large pie dish). So I did my usual thing, I Googled "vegetarian pot pie recipe". Nothing interesting showed up, nothing that would use up MY particular array of vegetables. So I decided to go it alone! The result turned out quite okay and pleased the whole family. There was a bit of haggling over the pie crusts. My husband doesn't like his crusts so I thought I could eat his but he wasn't parting today. My little one was saving them to the end so I pretended to be dense and asked her if she'd set them aside because she didn't want them (reaching toward her plate as I was saying this). Her plate moved super fast. Needless to say there was no chance of getting a bite of someone else's crusts. My older daughter told me that she was not parting either, not today!

Serves: 4 as an appetiser or 2 as a main

Ingredients:

Pastry:
	6 oz (175 g)	Flour
	3 oz (90 g)	Cold butter
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling:
	1 1/2 oz (40 g)	Butter
	1 cup	Sliced onions
	1 tbsp.	Chopped garlic
	2 tbsp.	Flour
	1 1/2 cup	Water
	1/2	Veggie cube
	2	Bay leaves
	2 bowls	Random vegetables cut into bite sized cubes
		Salt and Pepper
	1	Egg, lightly beaten

Method:

I firmly believe that the pastry requires it's own post! So if you've discovered this after I've written the pastry post (I guess I should have done that first!) here is the link: Pastry Post. But if you are an ardent follower and just live to read my rantings then the above link DOES NOT WORK! But then that is not an issue because you'll soon see the recipe here.

So start off by making the pastry, wrap it in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest.

You need to prepare your vegetables into bite sized pieces. If you are making individual pot pies like I did then it's not possible to eat your pie with a knife and fork. Actually it's quite challenging to cut anything which is inside a ramekin! My two bowls of veggie were just enough for everyone to be full but not stuffed. Next time I will make a bit more.

Notice, that all my veggies take about the same time to cook. Nothing is going to get over cooked if I throw it all in the pan at the same time. This was just luck. If you have things that cook quicker you'll have to add them later (mushrooms for example). 

Put a pan on the stove on medium heat and add the butter. Let the butter slowly melt. If you happen to burn the butter (i.e. it turns brown) trash the butter, wipe out the pan and start over. Burnt butter tastes disgusting and thus so will your pie.

Once the butter has melted add the garlic and onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir them regularly so that they are evenly cooked. 

Next add the flour and continue to stir until the flour is cooked. What on earth it means for the flour to be "cooked" and how you can tell that it is "cooked" I have no idea! So I generally cook it for about 30 seconds. If you want a bit of colour to your gravy then you have to let the flour brown a bit. 

Next add the water and the veggie cube all in one go and continue stirring. (You can substitute vegetable stock instead of the water and veggie cube.) Thanks to the onions and your vigorous stirring your gravy should not form any lumps. Once the gravy is smooth (i.e. all well combined, no lumps) throw in the bay leaves. Allow the gravy to simmer until it thickens. This is not a very thick gravy. 

Once the gravy has thickened add the vegetables, ...

and stir until it's all well combined. Next add salt and pepper to your taste. 

Cover the pan and let the contents simmer and cook for around 20 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Of course the time needed to cook will depend on the vegetables used. Be careful not to over cook them because they have to go back into the oven and you don't want to be eating mush.

While the filling is cooking take out the pastry from the fridge and get ready to make the pie lids. I used four small ramekins for my pot pies. You can use a large pie pan or any other pan as long as it is oven proof. 

I cut my pastry into four pieces and rolled each one out so that it was just larger than the top of the ramekin. If you want to have a base for your pie you will need to make double the amount of pastry. 

Then once the vegetables are cooked divide them equally among the ramekins.

Pop the pie lid on top and trim the sides. I kept on as much pastry as possible and secured the sides by pressing down on the outside of the dish. Don't forget to make some slits on the top so that the steam can come out. Make a pretty pattern with a sharp knife.

Then brush the lid with the beaten egg and voila! it is ready for the oven. 

Bake this baby (or these babies!) at 180 Celsius in a fan oven or 200 C in a conventional oven (that would be 400 F in most American ovens) and after around 30 minutes (I'm guessing, I forgot to look at the time when I pulled it out of the oven), once the pastry is golden brown it is ready to be served. Be careful it is extremely hot. Ours sat on the table for at least 20 minutes before they were eaten (hubby got stuck at the office) and they were still very hot.