In my years working as a chef running a function centre, catering and cake business, a colleague working as a consultant to the Adelaide Fringe Festival asked me to develop some savoury tarts, pies and frittatas for the first ever Spiegel tent in Adelaide.

This part of my business had been cakes, biscuits and sweet tarts, and so to develop some recipes to the same standard, with the same shelf life was challenging and fun as I decided they would also be added to my product line for my cake business, Café Cake!

Along with some wonderful frittatas and quiches, I developed a deep chicken pie, made with wholemeal pastry, and filled with a mixture of fresh herbs, organic chicken breast, ricotta cheese and a few other ingredients, which unfortunately I cannot remember, nor find the recipe for it!

It was one of the best sellers, and for the period of the Spiegel tent that year, I often sent at least 10 of these pies our per day, along with many other savoury and sweet tarts, cakes or frittatas. My husband often looked longingly at the chicken pies, and one day came over to the kitchen and asked me to bake an extra one for him.

Of course, I willingly did this, as what was one more when some days I was cooking literally dozens of cakes and tarts. Unfortunately for my dear husband, when I went to work the next morning at 3am to prepare everything for deliveries at 7:15 am, there was a message on the answering machine for an order of one more chicken pie.

Now, this truly was a conundrum… was I to use the chicken pie I had lovingly made for my dear husband to fill the order, or deny my client… I’m sure you can figure it out!  Hence, one of the ‘family stories’ in this house is about me selling off my husband’s chicken pie! I’ve still not made one for him… maybe this year?

Ps. the photo above is from Free Google Images… if I ever make one of my deep chicken pies, I’ll be sure to add the recipe and a photo to my recipe blog.