This recipe was a lot of fun to make. It was pretty time-consuming , but it made me feel like a hobbit in the Shire or a happy peasant woman out in the French countryside. It provided a choice between using a store-bought pie dough or homemade. I’m all in, so I made the homemade crust and I think it was probably worth it.
The dough was quite easy to prepare, but it has to be done a few hours ahead of time. If you have a food processor, it’s as easy as blending some ingredients and sticking them together into a ball. Then it has to be refrigerated before you roll it out.
The vegetables that went into the pie were fairly typical (the long-cooking variety so nothing became mushy or anemic) — mushrooms and onions, sweet potato and turnip, garlic and swiss chard. Lemon, butter, parsley and Parmesan rounded out the flavor of the sauce, which really did taste like a rich gravy without the meat. In fact, the final produce tasted very much like a delicious chicken pot pie without any chicken. I don’t know what could have been added, but it did sort of seem that something was missing. Some potatoes and carrots might have made a nice addition.
Once the vegetables and sauce are prepared and the dough is rolled out, all that’s left is to brush the crust with an egg wash and bake for about a half hour. The pie came out golden brown and even with a flaky crust and rich sauce. Very yummy and worth the time.
The bottom line:
Difficulty: I’d say an above-average amount of work for a typical weeknight dinner, especially if you make the crust yourself, which I’d definitely recommend. 4 chef knives out of 5. 🔪🔪🔪🔪
Kid-friendliness: My kids really liked this. Pie crust with a savory sauce and softly-cooked vegetables is a pretty kid-friendly concept. 4 yummy faces out of 5. 😋😋😋😋
Time: the crust has to be refrigerated for a a while, though it doesn’t take long to put together. The rolling of the dough, chopping all the vegetables, assembling and baking everything amounts to an above-average amount of prep time. I’d say 4 snails out of 5. 🐌🐌🐌🐌
Mess: an average amount of mess. You can imagine it takes a few bowls, a pie plate, cutting board, pot for cooking the sauce and vegetables, etc. 3 dirty dishes out of 5. 🥣🥣🥣
Overall: 👍🏽
This is a good deal of work, but it’s really delicious. There was the one little issue with it feeling like something was missing, but after all, it is a vegetarian version of a typically meat-centered dish. The kids really liked it and the execution was straightforward. Try it out on a weekend when you feel like spending some time in the kitchen!
Here, again, is a link to the cookbook, because the exact recipes are apparently not online:
700 Vegetarian Recipes 