Pie

Mushroom Pie

/ Frankie Mouche / 2 Comments

Autumn is here and that means only one thing: pie! With that in mind I thought I’d share one of my old pie recipes with you. Instead of going for creamy, I’ve gone for a super savoury rich sauce which will have your taste buds dancing on the ceiling.

Let’s get the ingredients sorted:

  • A tablespoon of all purpose flour
  • A tablespoon of corn flour
  • Two carrots, peeled and diced
  • One onion, peeled and diced
  • One stick of celery, diced
  • Pre-rolled puff pastry (I used Jus Rol.)
  • Vegetable stock (I used a tablespoon of paste.)
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Two different types of mushrooms. (I used chesnut and dried shitake.)
  • Vegetable oil
  • 5 bulbs of garlic, peeled and diced
  • Tablespoon of dried parsley

Let’s get going:

Chop and mix the mushrooms. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the vegetable stock and all purpose flour. Heat some vegetable oil in a pan and add the mixture. (The picture below is before I added the flour and mixed.)

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Stir fry for about three minutes, or until mushrooms are soft. Remove the mushroom mixture from the pan and place in a bowl of about 250ml of water. This will create a lovely rich stock.

Now place the onions, garlic, carrot, parsley and celery into the pan, making sure you scrape up all that lovely flavour left by the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms and stock back in. Mix everything together and then add the corn flour, mixing continually. Turn the pan right down, cover and allow to simmer for 15 minutes.

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Check on the mixture occasionally to make sure it has not become too thick. If it has, add some water and stir.

Once the carrots and celery are nice and soft, take the pan off of the heat and allow to cool.

Roll the pastry out and cut into shapes larger than the dishes you plan to use. Heat the oven to about 3/4 of top heat. Fill the dishes and cover the mixture with the puff pastry. Don’t forget to poke some holes in the pastry to allow steam to escape.

After 20 minutes in the oven, your pie(s) should look like this:

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Serve with green beans and mashed potato. Enjoy as a small pot pie or a a huge slab of deliciousness.

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I hope you enjoy this recipe. It’s one of my favourites!

Frankie 🙂

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Cheesy Tofu Pie

/ Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

Traditionally in the UK the summer seems to only last a couple of weeks and then we have lots of rain and a few mild days before it gets cold again. Well at least for the past ten years anyway and they tell us the climate isn’t changing yet! This means we still get to have pies in the summer to keep us warm and fill us up.

I wouldn’t say this is a particularly healthy recipe, but it’s a lot better than it’s non-vegan counterpart.

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The best thing about my recipes is that you don’t need anything fancy to make them work. All the ingredients should already be in your house or easily available.

Ingredients: 

  • 2 tins of braised tofu (I got mine from Holland & Barrett.)
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 clove of garlic, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon of vegetable bouillon powder
  • Half a carton of passata
  • Water as needed
  • 2 large potatoes
  • Half a block of Violife original cheese, grated
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 tablespoon Vitalite dairy free spread
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

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Method:

  1. Get the oven on full whack.
  2. Have a pan of salted water heating up to boil.
  3. Fry the onion, garlic and carrots in an oven proof pan, for about three minutes.
  4. Empty the contents of the tofu tin into the pan, including the juices. Break up the tofu into smaller pieces and allow everything to simmer for about two minutes.
  5. Add the bay leaves, red wine vinegar and passata and turn down the heat. Allow to bubble gently for about 10 minutes until the carrots have softened.
  6. Taste the mixture. Add salt and pepper if desired. Turn off the heat.
  7. Slice the potatoes thinly and boil in salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and place back in the sauce pan where you mix in the Vitalite and any extra salt and pepper you require.
  8. Place on top of the tofu mixture, layering if you need to. Cover in grated Violife and nutritional yeast.
  9. Put in the oven, in the oven proof pan for approximately 15 minutes or until the top has a nice crunch.

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Enjoy on it’s own or with some steamed vegetables. It’s very filling!

Vegan Steak & Ale Pie

/ Frankie Mouche / 7 Comments

It’s one of those things non-vegans often say to me, “you can never replicate things like steak.” Well until now I’d tried and failed on many occasions and I was just resigned to never being able to get anything that chewy and meaty. Even Veggie World’s mutton style pieces couldn’t quite match up. So how did I do this? I went back decades to what vegans used to eat before we had all this super processed imitation meat. I bought a bag of TVP for £1.89 from a hippie store in Pontypridd. TVP stands for textured vegetable protein and I brought the chunky stuff. I’ve had it before and it tasted awful, but with a long marinade and then slow cook this stuff loses it’s original flavour and soaks up all the beautiful flavours around it, much like meat would. Try this recipe for your Sunday lunch. You won’t be disappointed!

 

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Ingredients:

2 large red or white onions, peeled and chopped

4 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped

1 bottle of vegan ale (I used Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference brand as it is clearly labelled vegan.)

1/2 a bag of TVP

1 large tablespoon of tomato puree

2 tubes of Just Rol shortcrust pastry

1 teaspoon of cornflour

1 cube of vegetable stock, not mixed

Parsley

 

Method:

Heat a pan and add a dash of oil.

Add the onion, garlic and chopped carrot and fry gently for a few minutes until they start to soften slightly.

Now add the TVP and tomato puree, making sure to stir the contents of  the pan well so that all the flavours coat the TVP.

Crank up the heat and add half the bottle of ale to the pan, again stirring well. Allow some of the ale to boil off and then add the rest.

Crumble the vegetable cube stock into the pan, add the cornflour and parsley to taste.

The mixture should start to thicken after a few minutes so turn the heat down and allow to simmer for 15 minutes whilst you heat up the oven. Have a taste of your mixture after this time. The TVP won’t be entirely the way it should be at this point, but the sauce should taste right. If it’s too thick or or too strong, add some water and mix through. (The flavour you are looking for is sweet but ever so slighlt bitter. Add brown sugar if the ale taste is too strong.)

Line a pie or bread tin with the Just Rol pastry and fill the tin with your pie mixture. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before placing the pie lid on.

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Now place in the oven on a medium heat for about 25 minutes or until you are satisfied with your crust.

 

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Serve with new or mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables.

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Enjoy!