This vegetable monster is perfect for the autumn & winter seasons when these vegetables are at their peak! A word of advise from someone who just spent many money units on this pie--buy frozen veggies where you can. These vegetables can be easily mixed and swapped. For example, can't find acorn squash or butternut squash? Replace with an equal amount of sweet potatoes, yams, or any fall squash you can get your hands on!
So this recipe has a lot of ingredients, a lot of prep work, and takes a little while to construct. But, so you can learn from my mistakes, here are some pointers.
- Do not be mislead by the yield from the recipe. This makes a lot of food. I only used about 2/3 of the filling (using the last bit to turn into soup) and it made a pretty big pie!
- Bypass annoying crust-making by purchasing Betty Crocker™ Pie Crust Mix. It saves you the annoyance of cutting cold butter into flour, and having flour all over the place, and general unpleasantness associated with making any sort of crust. This box has enough mix for two pie crusts. I only need one crust (so half the mix) for one very large pot pie (used about 2/3 of the filling) that I put in a standard pie plate. I made the crust to the box’s specifications, then added ½ tablespoon of rosemary and 1 teaspoon of pepper (don’t sweat it if you don’t have fresh cracked black pepper, but if using fresh, add 1 ½ teaspoons).
SO! All that being made clear, lets walk through this.
First, you’ll want to make your crust. If you feel like tackling the actual crust recipe, great! The directions are super straight-forward and shouldn’t cause any issues. If you are taking the shortcut, like me, here’s what you do. Follow the directions on the box. Directions are provided for if you want to make 1 or 2 crusts (I just made 1). You just need to add water, mix in your fresh rosemary and pepper, and you’re done! Wrap it up in parchment paper or plastic wrap and stick in in the fridge until you need it (so the butter inside doesn’t melt and leave you with a smooshy crust, instead of a yummy, flaky crust!)
Preheat the oven!
Next. Get out spoopy-est bowl* and process your veggies! You have a lot of stuff to peel and chop up! I would start with the Brussels Sprouts. Quarter them, and then try to get all your other vegetables around that same size. Cutting even chunks equals even cooking! Toss them all into your spoopy bowl, add olive oil and seasonings and put them in the oven. Toss halfway, then let them roast till they're done!
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| Veggies pre-processed, and pre-spoop bowl. Also note that I didn't find a "baking pumpkin" so substituted with some acorn squash. |
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| Post-spooop bowl |
While your veggies are roasting, maybe take this time to clean up the gigantic mess you just made from making dough and chopping stuff. So much flour. So many vegetable scraps! The horror. You’ll also want to take this time to chop up your onion, garlic, mushrooms, rosemary and thyme.
Take your veggies out of the oven and let them sit on the counter to cool. Turn the oven down to 375⁰F. Now start your brown bits base (step 3 on the recipe)! This part is pretty easy, so just follow the steps!
Once your filling is complete, let it sit to cool. While waiting, bring out that dough we made earlier and start rolling that sucker out! When you’re done with that, pile up the filling in your chosen dish, top it, cut some slits on the crust, cover liberally with egg wash and put it in the oven!
Wait. Possibly clean your kitchen again (like I had to). Maybe watch a short episode of something. Do whatever you want, you have about 30 minutes to kill.
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| Appetizing brown bits (onions & mushrooms). Don't worry, it will get tastier looking |
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| Completed filling. At this point, if you decided you would like to add cooked meat to this recipe, add it! |
Once your filling is complete, let it sit to cool. While waiting, bring out that dough we made earlier and start rolling that sucker out! When you’re done with that, pile up the filling in your chosen dish, top it, cut some slits on the crust, cover liberally with egg wash and put it in the oven!
Wait. Possibly clean your kitchen again (like I had to). Maybe watch a short episode of something. Do whatever you want, you have about 30 minutes to kill.
Feed it to your loved ones and then eat some more Halloween candy!
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| The man human is not frightened by the many vegetables, nor by the lack of meat. He digs in courageously. |
Ignore this crust recipe (almost entirely) if you are taking the awesome shortcut. But if you feel up to it, awesome!
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*Aforementioned Spoopy-est Bowl
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