We've found that we often want something for lunch that we can sink our teeth into, something that's hot and tasty, something that's easy to make, something with some stick-to-your-ribness.
Vegetarian pot pie, as far as we've found, is only available at health food stores. The usual grocers carry plenty of pot pies, but they're all beef, turkey or chicken. Those of you who know us know that that will never do.
So I suggested to Mom that she buy a commercial pie crust and use that as the dough to fill a pot pie of her own making. She used the Pet Deep Dish Pie Crust and thawed it out and rolled it into small pieces of dough that would fit in two Pyrex (oven-ready) bowls. She placed a piece of dough in the bottom of the bowl with enough left over to overflow the side.
Filling? She used frozen mixed vegetables, southern style hash browns, chopped onions, some mushroom soup thinned with milk and a small can of drained mushrooms (pieces and stems). Each vegetable was cooked in the usual way before adding it into the pie crust.
She "dotted" the mixture with butter, salt and peppered to taste and then covered with more of the pie crust. The excess dough from the bottom was crimped to the top in the usual fashion. A package of frozen pie crust (top and bottom) will provide enough dough to make two pot pies in a cereal-sized bowl.
She baked the pies for about 40 minutes and 375 degrees.
Delicious! A nice, easy hot meal. A good way, in fact, to use leftovers.
And what about the small piece of leftover dough? She made an apple tart. She just took the dough, fashioned it into a bowl, added applesauce, cinnamon and sugar and baked it like she'd bake a traditional apple pie. So we had main course and dessert, too.
