St Patrick's Pie

OK I may be a day or so late with this one! But after I'd made the pie I couldn't call it anything else it was full of greens. On returning home from work tonight my lovely friend gave me a bag of olives that she had bought at the edible garden show. They looked lovely and the cogs started turning as to what I could do with them. Of course, I could have eaten them on there own and I did eat a couple whilst contemplating what I could make. The first thing that sprung to mind was to make an olive tapenade, delicious as it is these olives needed to be turned into tonight's tea. I also had a delivery of my weekly graze box and lo and behold there were some more olives included in this weeks box. Both green and black in a lemon and rosemary dressing.

I raided my fridge to see what else I had or needed using up. I found half a bag of spinach and kale, some peas and a packet of purple sprouting broccoli. I've never bought purple sprouting broccoli before as its a regular in my raised garden but unfortunately last years plants haven't yet produced any and the local supermarket was selling it at a reduced price. I also had a packet of ready rolled puff pastry, the jus-roll is vegan, I bet you didn't know that!

No herbs or spices were added as I wanted the taste of the olives to shine

So that was it, St. Patrick's pie was born. Here's what I did:

Ingredients

½ packet of jus-roll puff pastry
1 oinion, sliced
1 packet of purple sprouting broccoli
Handful of frozen peas
30 mixed olives*
½ packet of mixed spinach and kale
400ml soy milk
1 tbsp plain flour
Salt and pepper

* The olives given to me also contained pickled garlic, jalapenos and peppers



Method

Saute the onion in a little olive oil until translucent, then add the purple sprouting broccoli and stir fry for around 5 minutes until the broccoli has softened. Add the washed spinach and kale and stir till the leaves have wilted. Add the frozen peas, and stir to combine. Be careful not to mash up the purple sprouting broccoli. Add the flour and mix thoroughly, then slowly add the soy milk, stirring all the time. Cook until thickened and add the olives, salt and pepper. Pour into an oven proof dish and top with the puff pastry. Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Serve with a green avocado salad, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Minestrone Pasties

So, what do you cook, when you’ve still not gone shopping and your cupboards are bare and the only thing in the kitchen is laying at the bottom of the fridge forgotten about: Celery, Celeriac, Swede, Parsnip and Carrot. After what seemed many minutes of contemplation I came up with the idea of minestrone pasties. I made a basic vegan pastry and filled it with the vegetables I found in the bottom of our fridge! Now the only vegetables hubby likes are carrot, cauliflower, potato, onion and green pepper, but when dining out he has been known to have minestrone soup, strange but true. For this reason only, I called them minestrone pasties and served them with gravy. Now everyone knows how to make pastry right? I just substituted the fat with Vitalite (a vegan friendly margarine). For the filling this is what I did:

INGREDIENTS
3-4 cups diced mixed vegetables*

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 tbsp vegetable stock
1 tsp sage
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp flour
1/4 cup soy milk

Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD
Cook diced mixed vegetables in a saucepan of boiling water (salted if desired) and boil until soft and still keeping their shape. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking process and drain once more.

Fry the diced onion, celery and garlic in the olive oil until translucent, add the stock in batches and reduce each time.

Sprinkle over the herbs and flour and stir until all combined and cook through over a low heat for a minute.

Add the soy milk stirring constantly, the mixture will thicken. Once the mixture is to your desired consistency add the drained vegetables and stir until all is combined.

Leave the mixture to cool a little before adding to the pastry. I cut out discs using an upturned bowl and added a little filling to the middle before folding the pastry over to form a pasty shape. Wet the edges with a little soy milk to help them stick and press a fork into the edge to make a pretty indentation.

Bake in an oven about 180°C for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

* I didn't weigh the vegetables (doh!) but I reckon there were about 4 cups worth.

The verdict – Hubby had one and asked for another – unbelievable! 

Pizza Pastry

I still have some unused puff pastry in my fridge and you should know me by know, I don't like to throw away food! So tonight's concoction was Pizza Pastry. To make this to feed 4-6 you will probably need the following:

1 sheet of ready rolled puff pastry
Tomato passata
1 onion
1 courgette
1 red pepper
Handful of black olives sliced
Vegan pesto
Vegan cheese, grated

Score a rectangle about 2cm in from the edge of the pastry to allow the sides to plump up and give you a border. Spread some tomato passata over the puff pastry and add the vegetables in layers finishing with the cheese and pesto on the top. Bake in a moderate oven (180°C) for around 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden. 

Serve with a garden salad of rocket, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion and cucumber.