Winter comfort dinner of sausages, mash and Yorkshire puds!

Hello and welcome to the first post of Baked Beans on Toast! I had planned to start this earlier but then life kinda got in the way. But here we are and for the first post, I thought I'd share what my housemates and I had for dinner yesterday when we needed warm comforting food since we had to cycle in the rain and cold. We cook and eat dinner together every night but we sometimes we get stuck in a pasta/rice rut and needless to say, it got a little boring. 


So this term, we're expanding our foody horizons and last night we ventured to the exotic land of Yorkshire. Yes, yes, I can already hear some purists shouting that Yorkshire puddings should only really go with roast, and roast beef at that, but they're yummy, they're easy, they go nicely with sausages so why not? If you don't have an oven, I'm sorry for the tragic loss in your life but you can just do the sausages, mash and gravy which is awesome in itself :D Oh and I did little Yorkshire puddings in a muffin pan because we don't have a roasting try and it turned out fine!

For the Yorkshire puddings: (serves 6 hungry people, about 2/3 each)


300g plain flour
1 egg
About 300ml milk
About 100ml water
Salt and pepper


1. Put about a tablespoon of oil (I used veggie oil) into each hole of a muffin pan and put it in a oven preheated to 220'C - the oil needs to be really hot before you put the batter in. 
2. Put the flour into a bowl, make a little well in the middle and crack in the egg. Mix with a whisk if you have one or just a wooden spoon as I did. Add the milk and water slowly, stirring all the time until it forms a smooth batter that's runny as double cream (basically pourable). The amount of liquid is quite rough - just keep adding until it's fairly runny!
3. When the oil is hot, add two tablespoons of batter in each hole of the pan and then return it to then oven for 15 minutes. They should be crispy and golden when they're done! 


For the sausages:


2/3 sausages per person 


1. Put a little bit of oil in a frying pan (not too much otherwise the sausages will spit at you and that, as we learnt the hard way, is not fun). Fry the sausages on a low-ish heat so they cook all the way through, about 10 minutes. If you cut one open, there should be no pink meat if it's done. 


(I'm vegetarian now so I used veggie sausages and that takes much shorter time than meat sausages - just fry them in a pan until golden and they're done!)


For the mash: (my favourite bit!)


2 potatoes per person
Knob of butter
Few splashes of milk
Salt and pepper


1. I baked the potatoes in the oven for an hour because, although it takes longer than boiling, is much easier since you don't have to stand over the hob in a hot and steamy kitchen watching potatoes boil which is on a par with watching paint dry. This way I can shove the potatoes in, go and do some work for an hour (so she says...) and then start cooking properly! So pierce the potatoes with a knife in a few places and put them in an oven preheated to 220'C and bake for an hour (and also this way you have the oven nice and hot for the Yorkshire puds later!).
2. When they're done, cut them in half, scoop out the middle with a spoon into a bowl. Add the butter, milk, salt and pepper and mash (if you don't have a potato masher, a fork works just as well). You could add some grated cheese at this point if, like us, you're cheesy mash fans!

I hope you enjoy this wonderfully warming meal (and the nice break from pasta!) and come back for more recipes/meal ideas soon :)