Receta Vegan Veggie Pot Pie
I hope Mother's day weekend was glorious for you all. I was treated to a glorious do-nothing day, which is exactly what I wanted.
Part of that glorious do-nothing day was a personal realization that I did not want to cook, and subsequently clean, because it's Mother's day. And so I didn't.
And Honey even cleaned the kitchen from the previous night's random festivities. And Noodle and Honey washed my car for me. And almost bought me a new Ipod because apparently mine has decided to go to the great beyond. I got Season Two of Fringe instead. Which was just as good.
So since I didn't want to cook and Honey's version of cooking usually involves an intriguing combination of chickpeas, lettuce and Tapatio, I pulled out some veggie pot pies I made about a month ago and froze.
And they were fantastic. A simple, sauceless, lighter and healthier version of a traditional chicken pot pie. Wildly flavorful from the vegetable mix and I got to use my fun Williams Sonoma pocket pie presses.
The pastry dough recipe is simply off the back of the pie press box, veganized, of course.
Yield: 6-8 pies
Need:
For the crust:
- 2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
- 1 teaspoons salt
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 16 Tablespoons cold Earth Balance (that's 250 grams), cut into chunks or cubes
- 6-8 Tablespoons ice water
- For the filling:
- 1/2 sweet white onion, roughly chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, diced
- 5-8 small mushrooms, halved or quartered, depending on size
- 2 med carrots, quartered then chopped
- 1 small sweet potato, chopped into bite sized pieces
- 2 small celery spears, chopped
- 2-3 asparagus spears, chopped
- 1 small zucchini, quartered then chopped
- 3/4 fresh sage leaves, finely julienned
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped fine
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped fine
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Do:
For the crust:
In a food processor, pulse together flour, salt and sugar until combined. Add Earth Balance and pulse until your dough looks like coarse meal.
Add 6 Tablespoons ice water and pulse a couple times. The dough should hold together when you squeeze it with your fingers; it shouldn't be too sticky though. If it's crumbly, add more water 1 teaspoon at a time, pulsing once or twice before adding more.
Once dough is ready, turn it out on a lightly floured work surface and divide in half. Shape each half into a disc and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 400.
Remove dough from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Flour your work surface and roll one disk at a time into a round 1/16 to 1/8 inch thickness.
Cut dough to be slightly larger than your mini pie tins, or whatever you are baking your pot pies in. Gently press dough into tin and cut off excess, keeping a 'crust' around the edge of the tin. Repeat for all tins.
Cover lightly with tin foil and bake for 6-7 minutes until crust is basically cooked. Remove and set aside.
Reduce oven temperature to 375.
Roll the remaining dough disk out and make your pie tops. You can use the fantastic Williams Sonoma lattice pocket pie mold, or simply cut circles, using a pie tin as a template and create your own design.
For your filling:
In a pan, heat a little olive oil on med/high and add onions and garlic. Cook for about 1 minute then add mushrooms, carrot and sweet potato. Cover and let cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring intermittenly.
Reduce heat slightly and add asparagus, celery and zucchini. Stir, cover and let cook another 5 minutes or so. At this point, check your veg (particularly the sweet potato) to ensure it is softening appropriately.
Add sage, thyme, rosemary, sea salt and black pepper to your veg. Stir, then cover and let cook another 2 mintutes or so. At that point, taste your veg and add more salt and pepper as needed.
When your veg is appropriately seasoned, turn off stove and prepare to fill your tins. Fill each tin to the top, slightly heaping, with an even representation of all the veg and herbs.
Gently lay your top crust over the veg. Press excess top crust gently into the crust on the side of the tin.
Cover lightly with tin foil and return to the oven. Bake for 20 minutes then remove tin foil and bake for another 10-12 minutes until crust is golden brown and slightly flaky.
Remove from oven and let stand for 5-8 minutes before serving.
Serve:
I served these in their tin alongside a gorgeous green salad. From there, I removed mine from the tin, Honey ate his directly out of the tin. If you allow them to cool appropriately, you can absolutely remove them from the tin before serving.
Hearty and healthy with the flavor of fresh herbs, I will make these again soon and freeze for the next do-nothing day.
Enjoy!
Sweet Potato