Passive aggressive pie

I don't consider myself a particularly mean or nasty person. I frequently write pithy and cutting tweets, only to delete them 30 seconds later, for fear of offending someone. No matter how much someone has annoyed me, I find it difficult not to respond when they text me. Even when something is seriously bothering me, I'm willing to let it go in  the short term in order to have an easier life. Some may call it passive, or avoidant, I just like everything to be nice. However, I must have been feeling particularly vindictive when I decided to make this pie. Granted, things hadn't exactly been going to plan. I had spent close to 3 hours navigating the streets of London trying to get home from a friend's house the previous night, thanks to disappearing buses. My sensible, quiet night in with X Factor turned into a cross-London epic; I had to tackle Oxford Street at 3am on a day England had won a football match. It was less than pleasant. The plan the  next day was to spend my day slow-cooking some pork belly and red cabbage, after a leisurely brunch with friends. I slept through brunch, the butcher was closed, there was no red cabbage in the shops. Obviously, I snapped. I cooked the most passive aggressive dinner I could: one of the people I was cooking for doesn't like mushrooms, the other isn't a fan of stews or pies. I can't really eat Stilton as it hurts my stomach. But I soldiered on. I subconsciously wanted to ruin everyone else's weekend by making this. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and the pie was a success. So much so, that when my boyfriend arrived home from work there was far less left than I had expected. Ho hum. I was only saving him from the mushrooms, honestly.

I would definitely serve this with mashed potato and gravy were I to make it again. Again, it's adapted from something I found on BBC Good Food. Some day I'll use proper cookbooks. The Stilton flavour isn't at all strong; it just adds an interesting layer of savoury-ness to the pastry. I used prepackaged puff pastry, but I saw Mary Berry use it on the telly the other day so it must be OK.
Feel free to leave the chili out. I only used it as they are the only really successful thing in our garden this year, and I use them in everything. I think it gave a slight hit of heat, which some people mightn't like, but I enjoyed.
Like everything I ever make, it's ridiculously easy.

Beef and ale pie with a Stilton crust.

Ingredients
500g stewing beef
2 rashers of smoked bacon
200g pack of mushrooms
A heaped teaspoon of plain flour
500ml dark brown ale
1 teaspoon of English mustard
a splash of Worcestershire sauce
1 chopped chili, seeds removed if you're weak.
salt and pepper
1 packet of ready made puff pastry
50g (about the size of a matchbox) Stilton
1 egg, beaten

 Brown the beef. I did this in two batches, and added the bacon in the second batch. Remove, the beef but leave the bacon, add the onion, mushrooms, chili and brown.
Put the beef back in, sprinkle over the flour, and cook for two minutes. Apparently this gets rid of the floury taste. I don't know.
Add about 2/3 of the ale, the mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and season liberally. Bring to the boil, put a lid on it, and simmer for about 2 hours. At this point you could wash up after yourself, do some other housework, or work on your novel. I poured a glass of wine and watched Labyrinth, because I am very productive.
It's important to keep an eye on it, because if your pots are anywhere as useless as mine, it's going to stick. Keep stirring, and once it begins to get a bit dry, add some more ale until it's not dry anymore.
Put your oven on however long before it's finished so that it heats up to 200 degrees.
When it's pretty much reduced and thick, roll out your pastry until it's about half the width it was. Dot the Stilton on the pastry, then fold it over and roll again so that the cheese becomes part of the pastry (I thought this was dead clever)
Pour the beef mixture into a pie dish, cover with the cheese pastry, and bake for about 1/2 an hour until golden.

And there you go. Hopefully if one of you make this, you'll hate it, and my passive-aggression won't have gone entirely to waste.

Here's a terrible picture of the pie. Yes, that's a smiley face on top. I'm a kook at heart. I forgot to take a cross section because I was watching X Factor, and One Direction were on. Soz.

 To make up for that frankly terrifying sight, here are some pretty pictures of Salzburg. All I ate was meat and dumplings and beer for a week. They're not the most photogenic of foods.