Anything Pot Pie

So if you were coming over my house, this is what I'd make for you, and you'd feel great.  You'd walk in, my house would smell amazing and you'd smile at the thought of flaky pie crust smothered in gravy and sweet potatoes.  And secretly, I'd be glad because the happiness-to-effort factor works out in everyones favor because the secret is - this is seriously easy.  (it actually "blows my mind" that people buy these things frozen in little boxes from some factory far away...)

Anyways, the great thing about pot pie is that in one fell swoop it can use up all those vegetable bits that you're contemplating throwing out next time you clean your fridge.  This time I used carrots, celery, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, tofu and onion - next time I'll probably add some broccoli or cauliflower, and maybe some spinach for color - really, anything goes.

Here's the basic recipe - but as with all my recipes, take it as a grain of salt because I pretty much don't measure anything ever when I cook

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
Medium/largish onion, diced
2 stalks celery, chopped small
2 cloves minced garlic (okay, maybe more like 4.. if you're me)
Fresh herbs + seasonings (I used fresh sage and thyme)
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup (non-dairy) milk
Carrots
Potato (any variety, sweet, orange, red, white, purple!)
Peas
Tofu - optional
Recipe (read: box of) 2 pie crusts
(can I just rant for a second? I'm all for homemade, but I really hate making pie crust - it makes a huge mess on the       counter and the store brand box of 2 pie crusts is almost always vegan, and its super cheap! so yes, in my house you can almost always expect the palm oil laden pie crusts, sorry.)

1. Melt butter in saute pan, add chopped onion, celery and garlic.  Meanwhile boil some water and add veggies (stuff like carrots, potatoes, broccoli - not peas)
2. Add tofu to saute pan, and cook for ~2 minutes
3. When the onion and celery mixture is softened, and golden brown sprinkle flour over mixture and stir.  Simmer for about 2 minutes and slowly add milk.  Add fresh herbs and spices.  Simmer and stir until mixture thickens.
4. Use a slotted spoon to add veggies to saute pan.  Slowly add some of the water from the veggie-boiling-pot to the saute pan to thin out the gravy a bit (roughly 1/2 cup - 1 cup)
5. Once you have a nice thick roux with the flavor you desire, take the pan off the stove and put it into the fridge and let it cool for at least 30 mins.  The mixture should be at least room temp, if not cooler before baking
6. While it is cooling, spread one pie crust into the bottom of a pie pan and bake until lightly browned.  When the mixture is cooled, fill pre-baked pie crust and spread remaining crust over top.  Bake at 400 until crust is golden brown on top, and the filling is bubbling.

The thing about this recipe is that while it's not the quickest, it's SO forgiving, and the end result is a complete meal.  You can also do so much with this recipe as a base - for a potluck this weekend I made the filling and baked it into dinner rolls stuffed into a muffin tin to make "pot pie cupcakes" so everyone at the party had their own little vegan pot pie.  When I got home, I had leftover filling and two extra pie crusts in my fridge, so I made 4 mini pot pies baked into small pyrex dishes and then I froze them so on a night when I don't have time to cook, I can just pull one out of the freezer and re-heat in the oven.

Pot pie cupcakes!

sorry for the lame photography - but maybe the lack of detailed pictures will compel to bake it and see how awesome it is IRL!

Happy Belly: Vegnews Mac N Cheese

(I just decided that from now on recipe installments will be titled "happy belly")

So I, like all rational food loving people, LOVE mac n cheese.  It's probably my favorite food.  However, my life is plagued by lactose intolerance and some semblance of morals so I don't eat (much) cheese. I've made a handful of vegan versions of my comfort food favorite.  When we were at Sarah and Al's house on Sunday she told me that there is an infamous VegNews vegan mac recipe, but apparently it's not infamous enough for me to know about it.  Thus, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for dinner Monday night.

Even if you're not vegan, this is a really tasty dish and a great way for parents to hide veggies in their kids dinner, while cutting down on bad fats and cholesterol.  This recipe has carrots in it, but another one that I've tried used roasted red peppers (from a jar, or you could make yourself) which I'm sure could also added or substituted. Next time I may even add some puréed chickpeas for added protein and fiber. (maybe Ill replace the potatoes with chickpeas)

So I made it and I seriously doubted it based off the recipe, but it ended up being really good and probably the healthiest and cheapest version of vegan mac that I've made so far, so I wanted to share.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, and next time I'll probably make a few adjustments.

Adapted from the VegNews website:
1 Package of pasta - I used medium shells
Breadcrumbs
1 cup red potatoes
1/4 cup carrots
1/2 chopped onion
1 cup water
1/4 cup raw cashews
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon paprika


Preheat oven to 350 F:

Cook pasta, strain and run under cold water and set aside

Peel and chop carrots - I used 3, but use you discretion depending on their size

Peel and roughly chop potatoes

Boil veggies in 1 cup water until tender, 10-15 minutes

Add cashews, spices, lemon juice and mustard to blender and blend

Spoon veggies and water into blender and pulse until smooth and homogenous.  Add salt and pepper or additional spices to taste. 

Pour cheese mixture over pasta in a casserole dish

Liberally cover with breadcrumbs, homemade or lazy style like me

Bake for 30 minutes or until top is browned and bubbling.  Enjoy!

Notes:

I forgot to buy shallots, which the original recipe calls for, so I added extra onions.  Next time I'll definitely buy shallots, because I love them, but I don't think they are necessary.  I also added a little sprinkle of nutritional yeast, but that's also unnecessary.  This recipe seems pretty forvgiving, and most people can make it work in some way with whatever is in your fridge.  Pair it with a salad with some great balsamic vinegar for an easy, happy belly dinner.

A recipe and a story

This is my Oma, she's one of my top 5 favorite people.  She grew up in Indonesia during WWII with a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother.  Eventually her family fled to The Netherlands where she finally met my Opa after months of writing love letters back and forth.  They were married and moved to America where they had 5 children.

I grew up as much in her house as I did my own.  Because my mom worked, every day after school I would ride my bike from my house to theirs where I spent the afternoons exploring the backyard and reading the encyclopedia with Opa.  In the evenings my mom would come home from work and we would all eat dinner together.

It's hard to put into words how incredible her cooking is.  I totally took it for granted as a child, but now as an adult who knows the stress of cooking a big meal in a small kitchen I am in awe of how she puts together incredible meals with ease.  On nights when she cooks Indonesian food the entire family flocks to her house where we all cram into her tiny kitchen and eat ourselves into comas.

After dinner she would always offer us more, ice cream or chocolates that she always has in the fridge, but I always went for the cookies from Oma's cookie tin.  As far as I'm concerned it's existed since the beginning of time (or 1950) and it always has cookies in it.  It's the item that most remind me of Oma and the feeling I get when I go home.

I decided I wanted a cookie tin of my own, to have in my own home, that would some day also be considered a product of the beginning of time.  I started to poke around on the internet.  Her tin only had one identifying mark on it - the bottom says "continer made in Holland".  I was surprised to find a plethora of options on Etsy, and I chose the one that most reminded me of Oma's

So now I do my best to make fresh baked cookies for my cookie tin.  The most popular recipe thus far has definitely been "potato chip cookies" so I thought I'd share the recipe with you all, any maybe you'd be inspired to find a vintage cookie tin for your home.

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

2 sticks butter (softened or room temp)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans (just spread them on a baking sheet at 350 for a few minutes until they become aromatic)

1/2 cup crushed potato chips (or more, if you like)

2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350

In a stand mixer cream together butter and 1/2 cup sugar.  Add vanilla, pecans and crushed potato chips. Sift in flour, mix well.

Use your hands to form small dough balls and arrange on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. (because you probably hate washing cookie sheets as much as I do)  

Lastly, take the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and put in a shallow dish.  First touch the bottom of a drinking glass into the sugar, and press onto the dough balls to flatten them.  

Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool on a wire rack.  Fill your belly and then fill your cookie tin.