This is a simplified version of Nigella’s Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon pie. I wanted to use left-over cooked chicken instead of cooking fresh, so this is what I used:

• Bowl full of cooked chicken meat – about 500g
• 4 rashers of bacon
• half a box of chestnut mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons of Marsala wine
• 500ml of hot chicken stock
• roll of ready-made shortcrust pastry (though in hindsight I wish I’d made my own)
• splash of olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• 3 spoons of plain flour
• dried mixed herbs

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C or a little hotter. Put a glug of olive oil in a pan. Slice a clove of garlic in half and push it round the pan while the oil warms up. Chuck the garlic away before it burns. Cut the bacon into little strips and fry. When it begins to catch, toss in the sliced mushrooms.

Chop the chicken into small chunks and chuck in the pan along with a couple of teaspoons of dried mixed herbs – she said to use thyme, but I never ever have enough thyme. Sprinkle over a few dessert spoons of plain white four. When the mushrooms are cooked, add the marsala and the hot chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 or 10 minutes until thickening.

Put the mixture in a dish and cover with pastry. I put the children’s initials on top with the left-over pastry for a bit of fun, but this proved to be a very good move. Tilly had earlier in the afternoon declared that chicken pie was “disgusting” and she wouldn’t eat it – but of course she just had to have the piece with the letter T on, and she ate loads.

Bake for half an hour. Serve with new potatoes, peas and sweetcorn. Delicious. It all went. Nothing left for Mr Freezer.

- 1 block shortcrust pastry – taken from the freezer about 3 hours ago and now thoroughly de-frosted.
- 1 tin Campbell’s condensed chicken soup.
- 2 chicken fillets – diced.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Fry the diced chicken in a knob of melted butter.

Grease the inside of a pie dish or oven-proof plate. I use a shallow pyrex bowl which is very un-glamorous, but quite effective.

Roll out two sheets of pastry. Put one on your plate to form the bottom of the pie.

When the chicken’s cooked take it off the heat and stir in the condensed soup. Ladle this mixture into the pie and cover with the top sheet of pastry.

Trim the pastry so it’s nice and tidy round the outside of the pie, seal the edges by pressing down with the tines of a fork all the way round the rim. Cut a slit in the top of the pie and if you’re feeling creative make a few pastry leaves to decorate the top of the pie. Brush or sprinkle with milk.

Put it in the oven until the pastry’s cooked.

Lovely with roast potatoes and some veg or just some chips!