Biscuit Crust Veggie Pot Pie

This weekend’s autumnal equinox and the first wet leafy breezes have got me craving a change to harvest cooking.   But I wasn’t sure exactly what to cook until inspired by the ingredients of September’s Monthly Mingle at What’s for Lunch Honey.  The featured ingredients are zucchini and sage - perfect for that transition to cozier autumn dishes.  Hello to everyone that I’ll be “meeting” at the mingle and thanks to Meeta for being hostess! 

The Li’l Sis voted on making a pot pie rather than zucchini burgers or zucchini boats and, if I pat my own back for a sec, this huge, golden and bubbly pot pie turned out terrific!  It was very rich and the sage gave it a really homey “Thanksgiving” taste.

Notes on Veganization: I wanted to make this pot pie richer than some of my previous posts so I used real butter and cream, though I would be easy to sub a combo of soy milk and perhaps some white wine for the cream and a vegan biscuit topping rather than the one I’ve outlined below.  Consider this recipe (and better yet, ALL recipes) a general theory rather than a set of hard and fast rules.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Here’s the concept quickly: chop and cook up veggies on the stove, add the liquid ingredients and spices and pour into a large rectangular baking pan.  Top with a layer of biscuit dough and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  Ingredients and more detail after the jump…

Pot Pie Filling

1 large or 2 small potatoes
canola oil and/or butter
1 onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 stalks of celery, diced
2 carrot, diced
2 ears corn, kernels cut off the cob (or 1 – 2 cups frozen kernels)
2 zucchinis, diced
2 cups frozen peas
(2) 1lb2oz net weight (drained weight = 8oz) cartons chicken-style seitan, undrained
1 veggie bullion cube dissolved in ¼ cup of water
1 TBSP flour
1 ¼ cup heavy cream (or soymilk and/or white wine)
½ tsp sage
¼ tsp thyme
¼ tsp garlic powder
¾ tsp salt
lots of fresh ground black pepper

Poke holes in the potatoes with a fork and microwave for 5 minutes until barely cooked.  When they’re cool, peel and dice.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add a little oil or butter/oil mix to a large pot.  Start by sautéing the onions then add the garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Then in goes the celery then the carrots, cooking each for a few minutes more.  Next add the zucchini, peas, and the 2 packages of seitan with the liquid – be sure to chop up any large pieces of seitan.  Add the cubed potatoes.

Heat up a ¼ cup of water and dissolve in it a veggie bullion cube.  Add a tablespoon of flour and whisk together until there are no lumps.  Add this thickener to the veggies and mix well.

Pour in the cream and spices and heat over medium for a few more minutes then pour out the whole mix into a 9 x 13″ baking pan.

For the crust, use your favorite biscuit recipe.  The Li’l Sis made a buttermilk biscuit adaptation from this recipe from Allrecipes, but I’ll lay it out for ya here:

Pot Pie Crust

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 dash salt
½ cup very cold butter
¾ cup buttermilk

Mix together the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

And the buttermilk and mix lightly.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough into a rectangle just larger than the 9 x 13″ pan.  Please note that if you want a really thick biscuity topping you can multiply this recipe by 50%.

Lay the dough over the pan and crimp down the edges.  Brush the crust with more buttermilk.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Serve hot with a simple side salad and vinaigrette for a just-wrapped-in-warm-blanket feeling of deliciousness.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Casseroles & Baked, Harvest, Autumn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.