Vegetable Pot Pie

I had been thinking about pot pie lately. It was a week when we were already having chicken, so I didn’t feel like making chicken pot pie, and I was looking for a vegetarian recipe. So this vegetable pot pie from Budget Bytes was perfect. The Engineer and I both really liked it! The topping came out much thicker than I had expected, almost like bread rather than biscuit. I used white whole wheat flour, sure, but it also contained a lot of baking powder… In any event, it was very enjoyable. The list of ingredients looks long, but it wasn’t hard to make. I actually chopped the vegetables during the Little Prince’s nap early in the day, so it was all ready to go when I wanted to make dinner. My only modification to the recipe below is to reduce the liquids a bit, because my pot pie overflowed. This recipe makes 4 large servings.

For the filling
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
8 oz. button mushrooms
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 cup vegetable broth (I’d use ¾ cup next time)
1 cup lactose-free milk (I’d use ¾ cup next time)
½ lb. green beans
2 medium carrots
2 stalks celery
½ cup frozen peas
½ cup frozen corn kernels
1 tsp dried thyme
salt & pepper, to taste

For the biscuit dough
1 cup lactose-free milk
1 Tbsp. white vinegar or lemon juice
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
4 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. cold butter, cut in little pieces

For the filling
Before you begin cooking, prepare all of the vegetables. Mince the garlic, dice the onion, chop the celery into small pieces, peel and slice the carrot, and break the green beans into one inch sections. If your mushrooms aren’t pre-sliced, go ahead and slice them.

Pour the vegetable oil in a large pot and heat it over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onions have softened. Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté until the mushrooms have released all of their moisture, become limp, and turned dark tan in color.

Melt the butter into the pot. Once the butter has melted, add the flour. Stir and cook this mixture for about three minutes. It’s okay if the flour begins to coat the bottom of the pot, but if it looks like it may begin to burn, turn off the heat.

Warm the vegetable broth slightly in the microwave. Add the broth to the pot and stir to dissolve all of the flour off of the bottom of the pot and off of the vegetables. Warm the milk in the microwave. Slowly add the milk while stirring.

Add the rest of the vegetables (green beans, carrots, celery, corn, peas) and the thyme. Increase the heat and bring the pot up to a simmer. Once it reaches a simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low and allow it to simmer for 10-15 minutes while you prepare the biscuit dough. Stir the mixture occasionally to prevent it from scorching on the bottom of the pot. (In the final dish, all the vegetables were to my liking except the green beans, which should have been cooked a little longer.) Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 °F and make the biscuit dough.

For the biscuit dough
Mix the vinegar or lemon juice and the milk into the measuring cup and set aside. (This makes a buttermilk substitute, with the right pH for the recipe.)

In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups of flour with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add the butter to the flour mixture and mix until it is evenly incorporated. (I don’t have a pastry cutter, so I like doing this using two knives, but a fork or your hands would work, too. The food processor is ideal, though. ) The mixture should have a fine, sandy texture.

Stir in the milk until the mixture is completely wet. The dough will be very sticky at this point.

Liberally flour the counter and your hands. Turn the dough out onto the counter, sprinkle with some of the reserved flour and pat it down into a square that is roughly 8x8 inches.

For the assembly
After simmering for 10-15 minutes, the liquid in the pot should have reduced and thickened. If you’d like it thicker, you can sprinkle in about a teaspoon of cornstarch and stir until thickened. Give it a taste and add salt and pepper to your liking. Pour the vegetable mixture in the bottom of an 8×8 inch casserole dish. (I’d recommend setting the dish onto a baking sheet lined with foil, to make clean-up easier if it spills over.)

Transfer the biscuit dough to top the vegetables in the dish. Use a sharp knife to cut a few slits in the biscuit dough to allow steam to escape. Bake the dish in the preheated oven for 15-17 minutes or until the biscuit is golden brown on top.