Love & loss & chicken pot pies

Last year’s multiple hospital trips were more significant than I realised last time I wrote. It turns out that, in the long-running battle between me and infertility, infertility was winning. Well ahead, in fact.

In hospital, the charge nurse stroked my needle-studded hand protectively. You have to know, she said to the young, overworked house surgeon who was trying to work out my next hormone dosage, that this young lady doesn’t react like other ones. We do something expecting one result and exactly the opposite happens.

I’m sorry, said my kind, optimistic specialist. Thousands of women and I haven’t seen anything like this, it’s about the worst. I cried. He did too, a little bit.

I had a full hysterectomy last October. In the waiting room before the procedure I hunched over, overwhelmed, gasping with nerves and pain and shock. It was the only thing left that we could do.

The inevitable sunk in slowly, lapping at my toes, because realising all at once would have been an intolerable tsunami of grief.  I’ve learned to say when people ask, ‘No, I don’t have children. I can’t.’

And now? I’m sad, but also free. We are no longer stuck in a tunnel of grief and what-ifs and the interminable waiting. No more lying waiting in cold hospital beds, desperately hoping. Trying to be brave. I can be someone who makes plans again. My body is my own and it works now.

I love the little things, because actually they are the best and biggest of things. My cat snoring, cute and snuffly. My niece’s silky hair and the fact that she lets me stroke it. Rain. Laughing. Writing.

My husband, because he is still here. For telling me that he wouldn’t want to have gone through the last seven years with anyone else.

So on Valentine’s Day this year I started cooking again in earnest. For love, for happiness, for full tummies, see below for my home-made chicken and chorizo pot pies.

I’ll write again soon. Lots of love to all members of my support crew.

Chicken and chorizo pot pies (makes 2 in 250ml capacity ramekins)

First make the pastry by mixing together 80g flour, 60g very cold butter and 2 tablespoons of cold water. Use your hands to rub the butter into the flour and mix it together into a ball. Refrigerate this for at least half an hour before you intend to start making the filling.

For the filling you will need:

2 x 250ml capacity ramekins, greased

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 skinless and boneless chicken thigh, diced

100 grams of chopped chorizo

2 tablespoons of sherry

3 tablespoons of milk mixed with 2 teaspoons of cornflour

Set the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. To make the filling, warm the olive oil over a medium heat and add the chorizo. Cook it until its lovely orange juices run. Add the sherry, let it bubble up, and then add the chicken. Once the chicken is sealed, turn the heat down to low and simmer for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, remove the pastry from the fridge, roll out and use one of the ramekins upside down as a cookie cutter to make two circles.

Divide the chicken and chorizo mixture between the ramekins.

Top each one with a circle of pastry and brush with a little milk. Crack some fresh pepper over if you like.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Serve with something fresh and green.