Artichoke, Butterbean & Olive Pie

I hadn't shopped for over a week, and if I'm honest the thought of driving to the supermarket and then walking round the busy aisles did not appeal to me today! So, once again I raided my store cupboards and fridge of things that I could use and needed using up. I do like a challenge. My cupboards were opened and the items that I chose included, a jar of sundried tomatoes and a tin of butterbeans. Next stop was the fridge, and it was rather bare to say the least, but I found a small jar of black chopped olives, a jar of artichokes, a lemon, 6 garlic and lemon olives, a packet of filo pastry and some bedraggled salad.

The next bit was the interesting bit, what could I make with these ingredients plus any herbs or spices that I had. If I was to use the filo pastry it needed to be a pie type dinner, but I didn't want anything rich and heavy, so a squeeze of lemon should help with that I thought.

After staring at the ingredients for what seemed like an age I decided that the butterbeans would be the main ingredient of the pie as this was the ingredient I had the most of, and the other ingredients would perk them up. And so artichoke, butterbean and olive pie was born.

Ingredients

2 small onions

1 Can of butterbeans

6 Sundried tomatoes

6 garlic and lemon olives

3 Tsp chopped black olives

120g Artichoke pieces

½ Lemon

1 Tsp garlic granules

Leaves from 3 stems of basil

Salt and Pepper

2 Sheets filo pastry

Method

Saute the onions in a little olive oil, until translucent, about five minutes. Whilst the onions are cooking drain the butterbeans and put ¾ of the tin in a food processor and blitz. The other ¼ of the tin cut each bean in half. This gives a little texture to the filling.  Add the beans and lemon juice to the onions and stir to combine thoroughly. Cut the sundried tomatoes into slithers, the garlic and lemon olives in half and dice the artichokes. Add to the butterbean and onion mixture with the chopped black olives and stir to combine. Finely shred the basil leaves and add to the mixture with the garlic granules, salt and pepper. Take off the heat and mix so every ingredient is distributed evenly throughout the mixture. 

Spray a small oven dish with a little oil and place 1 sheet of filo pastry over the dish, pushing the pastry into the sides and bottom of the dish but leaving the remaining pastry hanging over the side. Spray this sheet of filo with a little more oil and place the other sheet of filo pastry on top but at a 90° angle, so you have a cross and there is filo pastry hanging over each of the four sides of your dish. Transfer the butterbean filling into the dish and fold the pastry over the top to incase the filling completely.

Bake the pie in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 15-20 minutes or until the filo pastry is golden and crispy on top. Serve with a garden salad, I used lettuce, rocket, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Enjoy.