Veggie Pot Pie= Comfort Food

Before we get to Sunday's dinner, I just had to share our cute new "harvest" decoration. I'm not on the ball like Jenn and we had no Halloween decorations. I decided to go with a "harvest" theme so I won't have to take them down until it is time for Christmas!

The leaves were fun- we just painted on regular paper with "fall" colors so it was pretty solidly colored. Then we traced leaf templates (found on the internets) on the backside of the paper and cut them out.Sunday dinner was so delicious I just had to share! I adapted this veggie pot pie recipe to make these love vegetarian pot pies. They were SOO good even meat-eaters would have to agree they rock. I really, really encourage you to try this one out.

There is a bit of prep with all the veggie cutting, but it really is worth it and if you do it in advance (like on a Sat or Sun afternoon?) this would go together super-fast for a weeknight meal.

My favorite things about pot pie in general is the gravy and the crust. This recipe has both- we were suprised at how rich and "deep" the flavors of the gravy were for a non-meat meal- I think it's the combo of the veggies and the soy sauce.

For the veggies, we mostly used what we had on hand, but you could pretty much do anything you wanted- peas would be nice. I think we'll stick with the baby 'bello mushrooms for this- I think it contributed to flavor and color of the gravy. Next time, we're going to also try adding barley or bulger wheat to give it even more substance.

In order to cut down on the calories (and make and excuse to use my new ramekins) we opted for puff pastry instead of the full on top and bottom pie crust the original recipe called for. I think either would be good, but the puff pastry was a hit with everyone- especially the girls.

Mak's Veggie Pot Pie

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
8 ounces baby 'bello mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced

Heat olive oil over med heat (use a deep skillet or dutch oven). Add onion, mushrooms and garlic and cook about 2 min.

2 large carrots, diced
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
2 cups cauliflower florets
1 can Garbanzo beans
1 cup thawed frozen green beans, diced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups vegetable broth

Add the rest of the veggies, salt, pepper and broth and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling reduce and let it simmer until the veggies are just tender- about 5 min.

2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 c. water

In a small bowl, mix the water, soy sauce and cornstarch until the cornstarch is fully dissolved. Bring the veggies and broth to a boil and add the cornstarch/soy mixture. Cook until the gravy thickens- about 3 min.

Spoon veggies and gravy into ramekins (or a pie plate or 11 x 7 casserole). Cover loosely with 1 sheet of puff pastry (cut to size for the ramekins). Bake at 400 for 15 min for ramekins, or 20-30 for a larger dish.

Harvest Veggies & Creamy Polenta Recipe

Here is a recipe that we just created based one we got from the Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats cookbook. Bless her, her stuff is usually good, but not very veggie. Her original recipe has chicken in place of the squash and beans, if you want to meat this puppy back up :).

If you try nothing else, make the creamy polenta part- it is SOOO good!

Fresh Harvest Veggies and Creamy Polenta
2 T EVOO
1 c. chicken stock or broth (or veg.)
1 lg. Red onion- thinly sliced
1 zucchini, cubed
1 summer squash, cubed
1 can white beans (cannelloni)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
5 cloves garlic- chopped

1 pint whole grape tomatoes (we’ve used chopped tomatoes)
20 fresh basil leaves, chopped or torn

Heat EVOO in a pan. Add squash and zucchini and salt and pepper to taste. After the squash has softened a bit, add the white beans, red onion and garlic and cook 3 min. Add 1 c. of chicken stock and cook until the stock has reduced by half- about 3-4 min.

After the stock has reduced, add the tomatoes and cook for 1 or 2 min. or until the tomatoes are heated and starting to burst. Add basil and toss.

Creamy Polenta:
3 c. Chicken stock or broth (can use veg.)
1 c. polenta
½ c. cream cheese
¼ c. Parmesan cheese

Bring chicken stock to a boil and whisk polenta in until it gets thick-ish. Stir in parmesan and cream cheeses. The polenta should have a mashed-potato consistency. If it gets too thick, add some water or stock to thin it up a bit.

Serve the veggie mixture over the polenta.

Recipe- Eggplant Pannini

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've kind of had blogger's block. I was actually trying to think of something interesting enough to post and came up with nothing. Good thing we went to an indoor arena football game and had a family party this weekend to spice things up!

In the meantime, I wanted to share a recipe for the awesome sandwiches we had tonight. We gobbled them up so quickly I forgot to get a picture- sorry! We got this recipe from our new BH&G "Vegetarian Cooking" cookbook.

Eggplant Panini

1 cup torn arugla (can sub spinach, arugla is spicer)
2 t. red wine vinegar (we had garlic flavored- yum!)
1 t. olive oil

Toss together in a small bowl.

1 Eggplant, cut into 1/2 in. thick rounds
3 oz fresh Mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
1 12in. plain or seasoned round foccacia bread, halved horizontally
1 large tomato, thinly sliced
1/3 c. seasoned dry bread crumbs
2T parmesan cheese
1 egg
1T milk
2T flour

In a shallow dish, beat together egg and milk. In another dish, stir the bread crumbs and parm. cheese. Put the flour in a third dish. (we're breading the eggplant, see how that works?) Dip the eggplant slices inot the flour to coat, then dip into the egg mixture and last, into the crumb mixture.

In a 12 in. non-stick skillet, heat 1T oil over med. heat. Add eggplant slices and cook for 6-8 min. or until lightly browned, turning once. Top the eggplant slices with the mozzarella cheese. Cook, covered, just until the cheese begins to melt.

To serve, put the eggplant slices cheese side up on bottom half of bread. Top with the arugala mixture and tomato slices (and the top half of the bread, of course). Cut into serving-size wedges.

TIP: To keep the eggplant from tasting bitter, you will need to "degorge" it (I know, it sounds disgusting). Just make sure you rinse it really well- we didn't do a great job and it was a bit salty...

This was super-quick and really, really yummy! You can also make a great "second day" meal with the leftovers- just put some spaghetti sauce and some of the parm cheese on the eggplant/mozz and viola- eggplant parm!