Better homity pie under Churchill... (plus progress)

 As you can probably tell from my paraphrasing of a World War II propaganda poster, homity pie is a relic of World War II.

 It was originally comprised of potatoes, onions and leeks, but was probably often made with whatever the Land Girls could find.

 We follow this tradition to this day, and I'm going to outline the basics of what you need to make a homity pie so that you guys can try this leftovers magnet for yourselves.

 The basics are:

 A pastry case (you can make your own, or buy one pre-made. If you bake it yourself, make sure to blind bake it)
 Potatoes to fit in the case (floury or sticky work best. New potatoes are not your friend)
 Onions
 Lots of cheese (any cheese you want. Mum's friend Jayne uses mature cheddar. Mum uses a variety of the stuff that's in our fridge. We really like cheese. Mmm, cheese)

 You'll want to cook the potatoes first, in my family, we boil them so that they're soft and mix up well. There's no reason that mashed potatoes can't also work, but I wouldn't recommend using smash or similar, it'll probably be too insubstantial.

 Let them cool a bit as you chop and fry the onions. You'll want these translucent as opposed to caramelised, as they'll cook more in the pie itself. You can cook up some garlic too, which is what we do.

 Once that's done, you mix the potatoes and onions with plenty of cheese. It's better to have too much cheese than too little in this case, as it sticks the potatoes and onions together. You can add double cream and/or beaten egg at this stage, if you like to help it stick better.

 Now you put it in the pastry case and cook in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 4/5 for about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown. We put sliced tomatoes on before baking, because Mum likes tomatoes.

 It won't look appetising at this stage, but trust me, once it's golden brown, it's a welcome sight.

 Here are some other things you can put in too:

 Double Cream
 Egg(s)
 Courgettes
 Bacon
 Mushrooms
 Pepper
 Tomato slices on top

 You may be able to substitute the potatoes for another root vegetable. Go wild, the sky is the comfort food limit.

 However, if you want a proper recipe to try first, there's a good one in the Crank's Bible by Nadine Abensur. It's full of vegetarian recipes, and fellow carnivores, there's no reason that they have to stay veggie, so give it a shot!

 So now my brief foray into food blogging is over, here's today's progress!

 I decided to try and add a shimmer to the pink using gold ink, but I'm sceptical of how well it worked. However, I like the mix of pinks I got in the process, so I'm happy.

 I also used impasto gel to add texture to the white figure, and I think it looks pretty good. Tomorrow I'll do the same with the black figure so that the white one looks less odd. I'm also planning to add gloss varnish, but I'm yet to decide whether to varnish the whole painting or just a section like I did on Cleopatra Skies.

 That decision will wait until after the black section is finished tomorrow.