V is for… Vegetable Pie
Summer time and the garden and my friends’ allotments and patches spill over with vegetables; there is a constant exchange of green beans, lettuces and handfuls of fresh spinach, little potatoes and all sorts.
This pie uses a short crust pastry and is from Rachel Allen’s book Bake. For some reason I couldn’t roll out properly as it was so ‘short’ and crumbly. So I gave up, chilled it again and then grated it into the buttered pie dish and gently pressed it into place. Not my invention of course; I’m pretty sure I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall do it on TV. The original recipe can be found here and we made it pretty much as it is written apart from using creme fraiche instead of cream and leaving out the nutmeg.
Into my crust went a layer of freshly boiled and sliced new potatoes, lemon zest, some milky slivers of goat cheese and a mixture of two large eggs and a 250 g tub of creme fraiche, all mixed up with some freshly steamed and chopped spinach, a good handful of grated parmasan and loads of seasoning as the potato is quite bland if you don’t season it well and spice it up a bit.
We made a second pie which had pieces of freshly boiled beetroot and some of the beetroot leaves chopped into the eggy/creme fraiche mix, and some sauteed red onions and little beans, but I haven’t got a picture of that one as it has been put in the freezer for next week.
This is our little raised bed looking pristine in an earlier year...
V is for Vegetables in a big way and we eat loads of them most days of the week. I read somewhere that the secret is to have vegetables of different colours on your plate. Lately I have been very keen on purple vegetables and I just wanted to show you these potatoes. Nipitinthebud very kindly sent me some purple Peruvian potatoes from her stock to try growing this Spring. We grew them in tubs and lifted them this week. I haven’t cooked them yet but am really looking forward to seeing what they are like. I am thinking of a purple potato bread as Nipitinthebud thought they were a bit dry in texture. All suggestions welcome!
Other Alphabet in August bloggers you might like to visit are:
Nipitinthebud visit her allotment
Plot 52 Lovely illustrations and jokes
Sincerely, Emily read the Adventures of Toad
Misk Cooks has some fabulous tips in the kitchen
Zeb Bakes 
what a delicious pie with such lovely fresh ingredients..and the one you put in the freezer sounds so colourful..and your potatoes look stunning too..i grew some like that last year but they were not as prolific as yours appear to be..don’t you just love digging potatoes?
Hi Jane! We had six tubers to try and grew them in big tubs, so not as many as it looks maybe. The pie lasted us for three meals altogether, so excellent value and once made reheated beautifully.
I have used the grate it into the pie pan method and it works like a dream!
Your veg pie is rather dreamy looking as well- I love new potatoes in dough- on pizza, in pies, in pirhogis (sp?) .
piroguis? I had them once in Canada in a roadside eatery. Sturdy food. We love potatoes every which way here too. I was so pleased I remembered the grating pastry trick Heidi, I was getting so cross with the pastry ….
that looks heavenly.. I love just about anything in pastry.. c
Brian is a huge pastry lover, I pretend not to be interested, I don’t know how convincing that is sometimes. My mother never made pastry so I have learnt how to do it from him :)
Ha ha, it’s great to see our potatoes spreading around the country and it looks as though you got a nice crop of them. Ours didn’t do too well this year. Usually, we get some really big ones as well as lots of quite small ones. I really like these and find them quite versatile. They make great mashed potato and an interesting potato salad. As they are good keepers, they work well baked and are good in stews, curries etc – good winter fare. I know Nic wasn’t desperately impressed with them, so will be interested to see what you think.
Oh ho, so they’re Cornish Peruvian Potatoes, sounds like the name of a folk band at one of the summer festivals. Mr Chips and the Cornish Peruvians…. Well thank you for sending them to Nic and from Nic to me. Who shall I send some to to continue the spread of purple? I will use some very soon :)
Look at all your potatoes!! We’ve had mixed results with ours – they’ve been a bit waterlogged, but we’re going to try again once the new seed potatoes get here! :)
It looks a lot but it’s not really. One tub had more than the other, that was the one that stood on the path, the other one stood on soil and for some reason had fewer potatoes. Maybe they like free draining soil, I’m no potato expert. This was an experiment, but I’m not convinced they are worth growing in tubs, they take up a lot of space. These were a bit special though, so I am looking forward to trying them out :)
how about the roasted potato & onion MB bread?
That sounds like a good candidate doesn’t it? I was thinking about purple stotties ;)
I’ve been a way from blogland, but have now just whiled away an hour and a half I am surprised to note, just looking, learning, reading and enjoying the photos. I do like the photo of your Peruvian Potato sniffer-dog – very useful skill that – or maybe he is investigating their game potential. I liked your Urn photos, the second one reminds me of drawings I have seen of Don Quixote – he’s obviously earnt a place on an urn. And your pie looks delectable. Your photographer has one serious camera there – no wonder he takes such good photos, but you also have to have ‘the eye’ and he does have that too, doesn’t he.
He is a dog who rarely digs, preferring like the garden robin, to follow behind waiting to see what treasures are unearthed and whether or not they can be taken away for games of destruction. He was expert in stealing plastic plant pots behind my back as a puppy!
The photographer used to only take pictures of steam trains, large objects with fuzzy backgrounds. He applies his train principles to most photos…. ‘landscape’ I beg, ‘landscape’ they are easier to fit into the blog format, but he goes on his own tracks….
Lovely to hear from you as always Jan, missed you :D
I remember the ‘Tornado’ photo – you could almost hear and smell the steam train.
Potato in pie! I’m in heaven. I can’t wait to give this one a try – and your crust turned out so well!
Celestial pie! Glad to hear you like it Keely :)
I too love your potato sniffing Zeb. The potatoes look good too! The veggie pastry is making me drool. I am at my parents in Minnesota and it is harvest time up here. The whole counter is FULL of beautifully colorful vegetables( the tables are full too). I made breaded eggplant and steamed chard for dinner w/ fresh sweet corn the cob on on the side. Will jump into many loaves of zucchini bread tomorrow. Planning on sauted zuccini w/onion, mushrooms & fresh garlic for dinner tomorrow. Might need to made a veggie quiche too. So many options. My mom has always loved colorful meals…so I understand the concept of eating things of different colors when ever my husband sits down for a meal with my mom (maybe 1-2 a year if we are lucky ) he always makes the statement “oh, this is such a colorful meal” and smiles widely at my mom…she loves it, and he knows it! I wish we all had more time together over such said colorful meals.
Your raised beds too lovely. lush and healthy! What a beautiful place to grow some yummy things.
Thanks for visiting while you are out of town, as it were! Your meal sounds beautiful. Would love to hear about your zuchinni bread too sometime. Have a lovely visit with your family Emily :)
I just pulled two more loaves of zucchini bread out of the oven. I will try to get some photos and do a post with a recipe. Zucchini bread is like banana bread, in a way. A way to use of the abundance of zucchini. It tis yummy. Emily Oh, also made some zucchini refrigerator pickles. Not tried those before, will taste test them tomorrow. If we all like them, will do a post on those too.
There might be a zucchini cake/bread coming up here. I have one for my ‘z’ post. I am guessing it is what I would call a cake, raised with baking powder and with sugar in?
Pickles would be good too! Just eating some ‘asier’ Danish pickled marrow that is particuarly scrummy. Not made by me though…
It’s good to see that Zeb is on on the potato action. They all look wonderful…I wonder if purple gnocchi would work that variety?
Your raised beds make me green with envy. They all look so healthy!
Yes!!! purple gnocchi !! Brian has just wandered past, and he says ‘Jolly good idea’ ! (Now what have you let me in for ;) )