Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Mother Root (Vegetable Pot Pie)



This week was all about choice: We had a choice of 3/4 pound of chard, kale or arugula (I chose chard), 1 head of lettuce, 1 head of broccoli, 3 sweet peppers (I went with all red), 1 head of fennel, 2 extremely anorexic eggplants, 10 carrots, a choice of 4 potatoes, turnips or beets (I went with all potato), 2 heads of garlic, 4 jalapenos, and 6 apples. No corn and a much smaller supply of apples which is good because we've been keeping along with the apples but any more corn and I would have to leave it behind.



Jen had to work late so I started off by slicing up some apples and layering them on top of toast with peanut butter which I then drizzled with honey.



It might be the last of the lettuce so I just made a simple salad with crumbled feta, lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper.



For dinner I combined many of the root vegetables from the farm: onion, carrots, celery, turnip, and celeriac, and cooked them down with some sage and thyme until tender. Then I tossed in the chard and some of yesterday's turkey stock and cooked it down. I thickened it at the end with a little roux, transferred it to a casserole dish and topped it with a quick drop biscuit dough which I spiced up with some ground cayenne.

Originally I had intended to put some of the frozen turkey from Canadian Thanksgiving into the pie but I didn't feel the need to. Jen is not the largest fan of dark meat (in fact, some would say she hates it) so I opted for a "vegetarian" version. The result was pretty fantastic. It was free of any of the "nasty greasy grey chicken" that Jen despises but the medley of root vegetables was plenty flavorful enough.

To my chagrin there were some hidden parsnips in one of the drawers in the kitchen. I discovered this much too late to act. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to figure out something to do with them.

Only time will tell.

1 comment:

Lisa Marie said...

Roasted parsnips are delicious!!!