Meatless Mondays: Vegetable Pot Pie

Another Ina meal. What can I say, she has such fabulous recipes that are perfect just the way they are, but also really easy to tweak. This one needed some tweaking. A vegetarian recipe using chicken stock? What’s the point! So I used store-bought vegetable stock…don’t worry, all this chopping and peeling let me make 3 quarts of my own vegetable stock for next time.

I also switched around the vegetables (but of course kept the butternut squash, because it’s my favorite. Can you tell?) and omitted some ingredients that I didn’t have – Pernod? No thanks. The fennel gives enough anise flavor for me. And while I know saffron gives a great color and flavor, I can’t bring myself to spend the money on it. Maybe if someone buys it for me I’ll try it next time.

Recently I’ve been craving chicken pot pie. I see recipes in cookbooks and on TV and think it just sounds so good. With this cold weather here, a big bowl of steaming veggies covered with flaky pie crust is just what we need for a 1-bowl dinner. It’s also a hearty way to make a Meatless Monday meal!

Vegetable pot pie, adapted from Ina Garten:

  • 2 yellow onions, chopped
  • 1 fennel bulb, sliced
  • 6 tablespoons butter
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 cups butternut squash, cubed
  • 1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped
  • 1 cup celery, chopped
  • 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 1/2 cup frozen peas
  • 1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
  • 2 cups vegetable broth
  • 3 tablespoons heavy cream
  • Kosher salt
  • Pepper
  • 1 recipe flaky pie or tart dough, or your favorite pie crust

Directions:

1. Make sure all your vegetables are chopped to the same size.

2. Combine the butter and olive oil in a large pot and add onions and fennel. Saute over medium heat for ten minutes, until lightly browned.

3. While the onions are browning, bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil the potatoes for ten minutes and remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl.

4. Boil the butternut squash, carrots, and celery for five minutes. Drain and add to bowl.

5. Add flour and mix. Turn heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, until all the flour is absorbed. Mix occasionally.

6. Pour vegetable broth into pan and mix until thickens.

7. Add vegetables, including peas, into sauce.

8. Add parsley and mix.

9. Divide dough into six oven-proof bowls or two nine-inch pie plates.

10. Cut dough into 6 pieces. Roll each piece flat. Wet edges of bowl, and place pie crust over the bowl.

11. Brush will egg wash, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

12. Bake at 375 degrees for an hour until the top is crispy and the vegetables are bubbly and hot. Let cool for about ten minutes, because it’s going to be very hot!

Soba Noodles with Vegetables

This was served as the side dish with my broiled tofu, which Martha Stewart suggested as a meal. Well, I will always listen to Martha, because this was a great meal! Maybe I would have considered this the main dish and the tofu the side dish, but I served them on the same plate at the same time, so whatever. It’s delicious nonetheless.

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Carrot Cake Cookies

Note: Don’t forget to enter our birthday giveaway!

You guys have heard about our love for carrot cake. Well, these cookies are a very easy way to get that flavor without fussing over layering and frosting a giant cake. We didn’t frost these cookies, but we’ll go ahead and tell you how you can, anyway.

We found this recipe in the May issue of Bon Appetit – they have an entire section on carrots, actually. They’re in season, so if you can find really great looking carrots at the farmer’s market, these will probably be better than the ones I made. Try them with purple carrots, too! I didn’t use raisins or walnuts, I’m just not a fan. I don’t like them in my carrot cake, either. If you do, then go ahead and add them. Continue reading

Meatless Mondays: Curried Carrot Soup

Here is a meatless yet satisfying soup for Meatless Monday:

Whenever I go into a Williams-Sonoma, even if I don’t buy anything (you know I want to!), I always leave with something: one of those free recipe cards they give out. This recipe for curried carrot soup is just that. It was hanging on my refrigerator since I moved in over a month ago, but I didn’t have the tools to make it yet. Luckily, I got an immersion blender in the mail (thanks, Claudette and Moe!) and got to make this delicious soup for my guests. Continue reading

Surprise Carrot Cake

I never knew that I liked carrot cake. Before making this one, I don’t even think I’d ever tried carrot cake. Why would I want to put vegetables in my cake, anyway? Well, vegetables make delicious desserts – trust me!

This carrot cake was a surprise for two reasons: I baked it for a surprise party, and I didn’t have time to add any carrot-like decorations on the top, so it was impossible to know what kind of cake it was from the white-frosted exterior. Surprise!

carrot

The cake was a big hit, and I don’t think everyone would have eaten it just to make me feel good about my baking skills; I genuinely think it was delicious. The recipe is from AllRecipes.com, and since I don’t like baking with nuts, I left out the pecans.

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