Category: savory pie

Thanksgiving leftover hot pockets

Posted by miss alix – 30 Nov ’10

It may seem like I’m a little obsessed with leftovers. It’s true. But Thanksgiving always leaves you with so many of them. Even though we didn’t cook this year, we still ended up with a few nights worth of holiday food. I wanted to spice things up a little bit, just so we weren’t having exactly the same meal over and over. Hence the creation of the Thanksgiving leftover hot pocket.

thanksgiving leftover hot pockets

All you have to do to make these is make some pastry crust (I used the flakey pie crust recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking) and assemble as if you were making ravioli. You could easily use puff pastry if you didn’t feel like making a crust.

Start by preheating your oven to 425° F. Roll out your crust (or one sheet of  puff pastry) and set aside one half. Put a few tablespoons of stuffing or tofurky or whatever leftover you want in a grid on the dough, leaving about an inch between each filling. The next part is really important, you must drizzle a little bit of gravy over your filling. Make sure the filling isn’t piled too high or your crust may crack.

Carefully lay the other half of the crust over the prepared fillings. Press the spaces between each filling together with your fingers, starting in the center and working your way out. It’s ok if a little bit of gravy or whatever leaks out the side, but try to seal it best you can around the edges. Using a pizza cutter or a pastry cutter, cut the hot pockets into individual pies. Slice a few diagonal slits in the top of each. Transfer to a baking sheet and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

thanksgiving leftover hot pockets

These would also be great with your holiday meal, they’re not just good for leftovers. Let’s face it, everything is better in a pie crust. We had ours with some celebration field roast, more stuffing and some kale.

The bottom line is that pretty much anything is good in these. Get creative. If you want them filled with sweet potatoes and dandies, I’m sure they’d be extra awesome. Feel free to keep them simple or get crazy.

tempeh pot pie

Posted by miss alix – 10 Oct ’10

I accomplished a major goal this past week, I managed to completely fill my dutch oven with food.  I’ve made recipes that I thought would be huge but only filled the dish half way. This time, it was overflowing. I made a double batch of the tempeh shepherdess pie from Veganomicon. I knew it would be a lot, but the 6 pounds of potatoes really took it over the top.

It lasted us about two days, shared between Shawn, his brother and myself for lunch and dinner. It was hearty and filling and satisfying. The recipe was filled with good stuff but I think next time I’d like the seasonings to be a little more intense.

innards of a shepherds pie

With cooler weather coming (hopefully soon) I hope to make more casseroles. I loved the corn in this, and would maybe like to try something spicier, maybe with chipotle peppers. Yeah, that sounds good.

vegan shepherds pie

Do you have a favorite casserole?

Hello September (and a giveaway!)

Posted by miss alix – 8 Sep ’10

Today was a beautiful grey day here in Los Angeles. While we didn’t have much of a summer, I’m ecstatic about the arrival of fall. Why? Because fall is the best. The best time to get baking away. And of course Halloween is just around the corner. I can’t contain my excitement. On top of that, I’m happy to be hosting a giveaway for a $70 gift card!

With Labor day off, I wanted to spend some time in the kitchen. I made the Cauliflower and Mushroom Pot Pie from Veganomicon. This is the perfect recipe for the transition from summer to fall.

making of a pot pie

This pot pie is  full of fresh fragrant vegetables with a good dose of spices. While the pot pie is leaning towards the heartiness of fall, the vegetables still have a hint of summer.

pot pie

Check out all that cauliflower. This pie is packed with it. It cooks down to a soft and insanely delicious treat. It meshes greatly with the mushroom and other veggies.

cauliflower and mushroom pot pie

The pie is topped with a biscuit like olive crust. The savory crust is salty and crunchy and a nice contrast to the soft veggies; all in all, wonderfully balanced. While this pot pie is fairly large, Shawn and I were able to finish it off in one sitting. It’s that good, and not overly filling.

Ok, now back to that giveaway. I couldn’t have made this pot pie without the help of my Dutch oven. Well I guess I could have but it wouldn’t have been nearly as simple. But let’s not kid around, these guys aren’t cheap. Cookware.com has offered to give a $70 gift card to one lucky reader (which doesn’t quite pay for a dutch oven, but would definitely make one affordable).  The great thing is that you can buy anything on their site…or any of their affiliated sites, like AllModern.com or 200 other sites. That’s a lot of options.

All you have to do is comment on this post before midnight on September 13th. If you want another chance to win, follow me on twitter (and make sure to mention it in your comment). I’ll pick a winner at random when the giveaway closes. Good luck!

Update

And we have a winner! Congratulations to Meghan! She’s gonna get to go on a fancy shopping spree. Yay!

Yummy pot pies

Posted by miss alix – 19 May ’09

Just a quick little update with a recipe for these amazing individual pot pies. They’re so yummy, so easy and darn cute too. I could probably eat them for every meal  (I totally had one for lunch and one for dinner today). This is the sort of thing where you could add pretty much any vegetable your heart desired and they would still come out well. This version is the clean out the freezer edition.

These pies are savory and rewarding. They’re not too big so it would be great to serve with some greens or fresh bread. They have a full flavor without being too heavy. I used a lot of corn and carrots so it was fairly sweet but was offset by the saltiness of the seitan. Also, just for the record, this was my most successful batch of homemade seitan of record.

Seitan Pot Pie

makes 4 servings


1/2 onion, chopped

1 1/2 Tbsp Safflower oil

2 cups mixed vegetables frozen or fresh (corn, peas, edamame, carrots etc.)

1 1/2 cups chopped seitan

2 cups vegetable broth

2 Tbsp flour

1 package vegan puff pastry

First and foremost, take your puff pastry out of the freezer to defrost. It can take up to 40 minutes, so be patient. It does not need to be completely soft, but rather just pliable enough to unfold and cut. For me this is the hardest part, even though technically it is the easiest because you literally just have to do nothing. I’ve found a number of vegan puff pastries, both generic and healthy, so just make sure you check the label.

Next, heat the oil in a medium sauce pan and add the onions. Sautee on medium until they are soft and lightly browned.

Preheat the oven to 400°

At this point, add your vegetables. If you are using frozen ones, it’s fine if they aren’t defrosted. Pour in the vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Let simmer for about 10 minutes at which point the vegetable should be tender.

Add in the seitan and flour and stir thoroughly. Continue to stir for a few more minutes to let thicken. Spoon the filling into individual pie dishes.

Now, assuming your puff pastry has defrosted, it’s now time to cut out the tops. Unfold the pastry onto a flat surface and cut out circles slightly smaller than your pie dishes. Simply lay the circle on top of the filling. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Let cool just enough to eat and serve.

While I made individual servings, you can easily make one single pie, the small ones are just a bit more fun.

Onion pie and vegan cat food

Posted by miss alix – 23 Jan ’09


Let me start off by saying that I don’t like onions. I understand that they provide a good deal of flavor to certain dishes but if given the option, I would more often than not go without them. I really wanted to make a savory pie though and even though this was nothing like the recipe I envisioned, I came across this recipe and decided to try it.

The end result was delicious. It was something like eating sweet onions on a cheezy biscuit crust. I even had seconds. It’s not necessarily something you would want to have for dinner all the time and could probably have used some greens to go along with it but was insanely good. Check out the recipe below.

Onion Pie
Recipe adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess.

topping:
2 very large yellow onions
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp Earth Balance
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 oz soy cheddar cheeze, finely shredded
salt and pepper to taste

crust:
1 1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp egg replacer
2 Tbsp water
1/2 cup soy milk including 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, left to curdle
1 tsp dijon mustard
3 Tbsp Earth Balance, melted
1/2 cup soy cheddar cheeze, finely shredded

For topping: Cut onions into large pieces. Heat olive oil and Earth Balance over medium heat. Add onions and saute for about 30 minutes, covered and stirring occasionally. When the onions being to soften, add the salt, pepper and thyme. Continue to cook until the onions are quite soft and browned on the edges.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9″ pie dish with Earth Balance.

Put the onions into the pie dish, sprinkle with soy cheeze and set aside.

For the crust: Mix the soy cheese, flour, baking powder, nutritional yeast and salt in a bowl. In a separate dish, beat the egg replacer and water together until frothy. Combine the soymilk/vinegar mixture, egg replacer, melted Earth Balance and mustard. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir. The dough will be fairly sticky. Remove from the bowl and stretch out as if you were making a pizza crust about the size of the pie, being careful not to tear holes in it. Lay on top of onions in pie dish and seal edges.

Bake for 15 mins then turn down heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 10 mins or until the crust is golden brown. Let sit for a few minutes after removing from oven then place a large plate on top and flip the pie upside down. Slice and enjoy!

And on to the cats…When I decided to adopt cats, one of the big concerns in our household was what to feed them. Being vegan, it didn’t seem right to feed them non-vegan food, but being that they are naturally carnivores, it was important to give them proper nutrition. So far their diet is a bit of an experiment and a combination of vegan and non-vegan cat foods.

The vegan option that seemed the most promising was some supplements made by Hoana that you make into your own cat food. It comes with a bunch of recipes from kibble to rice and tofu mix. I went with the recipe for seitan as seen below.

kittie seitan

It may not be the prettiest meal, but isn’t that far from something that I would eat myself. I made some very simple seitan, by just boiling some chunks of vital wheat gluten mixed with nutritional yeast in water with a bit of soy sauce for an hour. If I had a vegetable stock without onions or garlic in it I would have probably used that. In the future, if I have more time, it would be possible to make the stock and would make the seitan itself more flavorful.

I tore up about 3 cups of the seitan into even smaller pieces and mixed them a sauce made of 4 tsp VegeKit, 1/3 cup nutritional yeast, 1 Tbsp olive oil and a bit of soy sauce.


The verdict? They really like the stuff! I was surprised after hearing quite a few people say their cats wouldn’t eat vegan cat food. I can understand where this general misconception would come from since a lot of people wouldn’t take the time to make food for their cats. For example, they really don’t like the canned vegan cat food I ordered and won’t eat it unless it’s mixed with something they do like.

Since the seitan chunks are a bit more chewy than just plain cat food, Mochi (the grey one) has taken to batting them around on the floor while she eats. Personally I’m fine with this. If a cat were going to eat a live mouse, they would probably play with their food just the same. Meeme on the other hand likes to lick most of the ‘sauce’ off the seitan before she eats it. Every time I have fed them this, it is all gone by the morning. I’ll definitely have to try some of the other recipes but this is a total success.