Raw Food Wednesday: Vegetable Pot Pie

Raw Food Wednesday 10/21

Pot Pie

I'm not sure what prompted the idea of making a raw pot pie, but I'm glad I wrote the idea down at the time...

Ideas can be fickle beasts -- they often arrives without warning, and often without pen, pencil or paper in hand. We've both gotten better at capturing ideas and wrestling them to the ground. Liz likes to use the "scraps of paper" method plus photocopying things at work. My "ubiquitous capture" method is to keep Notepad open on the laptop at all times, as well as having a paper notebook and pen in the kitchen, and a small notepad next to the bed.

Now, if I could figure out a way to write down ideas in the shower, everything would be perfect. ;)

Vegetable Pot Pie
(makes 2)

This would be great as part of a Thanksgiving spread, easily assembled ahead of time, and warmed through in a dehydrator.

Gravy

1/2 cup water
1/2 apple, peeled
1 tbs. nama shoyu
1 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. lemon juice
3 or 4 pieces of sun-dried tomato, soaked for 20 minutes

Eat the other half of the apple ;)

Everything else goes into the vita mix, puree until smooth. Pour off about a 1/4 cup -- it'll be used with the veggies -- reserve and refrigerate the rest.

Filling

1 small fennel bulb, finely diced
1 cup mushrooms, finely diced
2 medium carrots, finely diced
1 stalk of celery, finely diced
1 turnip, finely diced
1 small shallot, finely diced
1 garlic clove, finely diced
1 tbs. fresh tarragon, finely diced
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, finely diced

Keyword: Finely Diced ;)

Add all of the ingredients to a large bowl, toss with the reserved 1/4 cup of gravy, a pinch of salt and spread out on two dehydrator sheets and dehydrate at 105F for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The veggies will shrink, but they should still have some moisture left.



Crust

1/2 cup pine nuts
1 tbs. flax, spice grinder
pinch salt
pinch pepper
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Grind the pine nuts and flax seed together with the salt, pepper and nutmeg, which should make a loose sticky dough. Divide the dough in half and gently roll them both into circles, slightly larger than the diameter of the ramekin. Dehydrate at 105F for 1 hour, flip and go for another hour or so. It may still seem a little "wet" at this point, but you'll be dehydrating it again once everything is assembled.



Assemble

1 tbs. flax seed, freshly ground

When you're ready to assemble, grind the flax and whisk it into the gravy base. Don't do it too soon in advance or it'll thicken up too much before you need it.

Add the filling to the ramekins, and pour the gravy over the top, and mix to combine. Using a spatula, carefully lift the crust off the dehydrator sheets and place on top of the filling/gravy in the ramekin. Don't worry if it breaks or is still a little wet, you can fill in the gaps/cracks pretty easily. Press gently to even out the dough.



At this point, you could cover the ramekins and refrigerate until needed.

If you're eating right away, place the ramekin in the dehydrator for an hour or so at 105F to allow the veggies and the gravy to meld and let the crust firm up further.

Tags: raw food wednesday, raw food, raw, fennel, mushrooms, pot pie, pine nuts, nutmeg, vegan, food, dinner, tofu666