Pie Star

This is one of the few vegetarian recipes that My Beloved brought to our marriage. He's a pretty dedicated carnivore. However, he showed me how to make this veggie pie using two frozen pie shells, one for the top and one for the bottom, and I've been making it that way ever since.

In this case, however, I made it using my new best discovery, Star Dough. You can see from the photo how tender and flaky it was and I can report that the flavor was sufficiently buttery even for me who adores all things butter. An enormous improvement over the frozen pie shells, I promise you.

Star Dough comes rolled up in packages of two - all you do is thaw, spread and bake. It's a concept I can get behind; I do make good pie dough, but not nearly this easily. I'm sold.

Anyway, I filled it as I always do with whatever veggies I have on hand, slid it into a hot oven (475 degrees) and 20 minutes later, we had dinner. What with chopping the veggies and sautéing them, the whole thing took perhaps 35 minutes. Even on a work night, Star Dough makes this easy.

Veggie Pie

There is no real recipe for this - I use whatever I have on hand, but here's what I did last night, just to give you a starting place:

1 large onion, chopped

6-8 fresh mushrooms, cut in chunks

3 cloves garlic, sliced into slivers

1/3 head of cauliflower, separated into bite-size florets

1 small head broccoli, separated into bite-size florets

4 fingerling potatoes, cut diagonally into 1/4" slices

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons dill weed (it wasn't enough)

1 package Star Dough, thawed

Unroll the thawed Star Dough package, snip off the sealed ends of the plastic wrap, unroll and remove one side of the plastic. Fit the dough into a deep dish pie plate, uncovered side down, then carefully remove the second plastic. Keep the pie plate and the second dough circle refrigerated until ready to add the filling.

Sauté the mushrooms in the oil/butter combo until browned, then add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and a little browned (but don't burn the garlic). Add the other veggies and sauté (you might want to add a tad more butter/oil at this point) until the broccoli has turned bright green and the spuds have softened a little. Add the seasonings (I'd use my favorite Herbes de Provence next time - the dill was too mild) and toss all together.

Bring out the bottom of the pie from the fridge and dump the veggie mixture into it. Unroll the second pastry circle, remove one side of the plastic wrap and fit it to the top of the pie, crimping the edges after removing the second plastic.

Slide it into a 475 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown - I let this one go a little too long. Cut generous wedges and serve. Voilà! You're now a pie star.