mushroom pie. tasty tasty pie. for dinner.

i love pie. blackberry pie. pumpkin pie. apple pie. lemon pie. π.

and pot pie.

as a child, i loved winter evenings with chicken pot pie for dinner. and lo, i decided to give this canonically comforting dish a vegetarian spin.

i gathered some leek, some potato, some mushrooms, and two kinds of carrot.


i chopped a yellow and orange carrot, a handful of mushrooms, and a leek. i also parboiled some taters. i sauteed the leek and then added the veggies, and some parsley, gave them a whirl, and removed from heat.



then i made the gravy:
roughly 60ish grams butter (our sticks come in packets of 250g--i chopped it in half and half again)
4 tbsp flour
3/4 cup homemade roasted mushroom stock
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup white wine

i made a gravy with the butter and flour and milk, then added the stock and wine. i used some herbs de provence as well.

i combined the gravy and veggies and prepped the crust. to be fair, this was more like a pot tart than a pot pie... ah bon. i rolled out the bottom crust, made sure the oven was warm, and let the gravy cool.

i added the top crust, complete with star cut-outs for a steam vent, and stuck it in the oven.




the pie was baked at 350/190 for roughly 50ish minutes. just perfect for the mister's arrival home. what we should have done was wait for the pie to cool before digging in. but we didnt. we sloppily served it into a bowl and called it dinner. gourmet? nope. but délicieux.

oh, good GRAVY! chickpea cutlets and mashed potatoes

tibo carves the seitan roast 

last thanksgiving, i made a seitanic roast that, while super tasty and enjoyed by the meatavores, is an involved project. i began wondering, this week, as the weather started to turn, is there an alternative for evenings when im craving something substantial but dont have three hours to roast a "roast"?  yes, virginia, there is.

turns out, there are oodles of chickpea cutlet recipes out there; most of them are adapted from Veganomicon

the original recipe calls for bread crumbs and soy sauce and lemon zest, but i ditched those things. i replaced the bread crumbs with oats, lemon zest with lemon pepper, and didnt replace the soy sauce at all.

i decided to be totally comforty and make mashed potatoes and gravy to accompany the cutlets. ive always loved gravy but, like my grandfather, never put the stuff on my potatoes. i am a potato purist. however, ive always been keen on slathering the other things on my plate.

i made some mushroom stock and prepped the taters.

then, i gathered everything else and put the oven on 190°/375°

i used:
1 cup chickpeas
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup gluten
½ cup oatmeal
¼ cup veggie (mmmushroom) stock
garlic
lemon pepper
parsley
thyme


i mashed the chickpeas and added in the oil (hurray for food processors!). separately, i combined the cooled stock and a few cloves of garlic. also separately, i put together the dry ingredients (gluten, oats, and seasoning). next, i put it all together and kneeded it until it was gluten-ey. what does that mean? well, these little strings form. you can see and feel the gluten doing its thing.

i divided the dough into 4 and made little palm shaped shapes out of each hunk. i oiled them and stuck 'em in the roasting pan for 20 minutes (while the potatoes were boiling). then i flipped them over and baked for another 10.

meanwhile.... gravy!


i chopped about 3 mushrooms and sautéed them with some butter. then i put them aside in a separate bowl. in the same pan, i made a roux with butter and flour and sloooooooowly added the stock. once i was happy with the consistency, i added thyme and the chopped mushrooms.

the potaters (skin on!) were mashed with a little milk and that was that.