Veggie pie number 2

Looking back, I don’t think I added the thyme, but I did everything else.

Then I added cheese on top and shoved it into the oven.

It came out, and looked as though it would taste good, but it was dry, and lacking something. I have since reheated it, and had it for lunch, and I think that if I were to do this again, it would have the veggies cooked in the pie, rather than roasted ahead of time, so that all the juices stay with it.

I think what this needs is more juices, and something else, but I will have to make it again to figure out what the final missing ingredient is. The carrots and beets are great together, as are the potatoes.

cutting up the root veggies

Wow, still more carrots. I had to figure out something cool to do with them, and then I came across a recipe for Savory Autumn Leaf Pies in the Vegan Lunch Box book, by Jennifer McCann. It was actually for little individual pies, but it also had a variation where you could make it into one big pie, so I thought, great, and off I went.

For the filling you needed:

• 2 large carrots peeled, diced into 1/4 inch pieces (about a cup)
• 1 golden beat, peeled and diced (about 1/2 cup)
• 2 new potatoes, peeled and diced (about 2 cups)
• 2 garlic cloves (whole and unpeeled) -I actually used about 4 and peeled and cut them up
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.

I then took all that, and roasted it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Then I made the pie shell. I used

• 3 cups of gluten free flour (it called for 2 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup of barley)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
• 1/2 cup chilled canola oil
• 1/2 cup ice water
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Needless to say, the crust was all crumbly and didn’t hold together at all, but I shoved it into the pie shell, and dumped the veggies in, and cooked it.

Finished pie number 1

When I got it out, the shell was undercooked, and flaky and crumbly, and although the veggies tasted good, the pie itself did not, so I ate the veggies, and threw the res tof the pie out.

But then I got to thinking, perhaps I could do it slightly differently an d it would come out better.

Putting the mix in the tins

A while ago, when Cartoonist started middle school, I thought I would help her with ideas for her lunch, and bought a book called “The Healthy Lunchbox.” I had forgotten that we even had the book, until I started looking through the cookbook shelves to see what I could come up with for her to make for lunch.

I handed it to Cartoonist and said, find some stuff to make for your lunch. She picked out the Carrot or Zucchini Muffin mix.

Well, which is it going to be? I asked her, as we had plenty of both. She looked at the recipe and said “Both”.

So I grated up the carrots and the zucchini, and she mixed up the other ingredients.

• 1/2 cup of olive oil (they called for canola oil)
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 eggs (or 4 egg whites, which she would have done)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini and carrots
• 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup flax meal
• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Bake for 25 minutes at 350F

What was amazing was that we actually didn’t have to make any substitutes, we had all the ingredients. What a novel idea.

Finished muffins

We must have done something wrong, because it said it would make 2 dozen, and it was more like 18 and they were very flat, but they were good, so we decided that we would make this one again.

carrots and coconut milk

Wow, this was a great recipe, and we loved how it came out. We discovered this one because Cartoonist has to make her lunches, this year, in high school, and we wanted a cook book that was made for lunches, and packable lunches. What we bought was “Vegan Lunch box” by Jennifer McCann. We figured it was a good place to start. (and I spend far too much on cookbooks, but oh well, we all have our vices)

pre mix

Cartoonist started leafing through the book, and found Coconut Carrot Rice Pudding. We had all the ingredients, so figured it was a good one to make. The only problem we ran into was that it called for 3 cups of brown basmati rice. Brown rice takes about 2 hours to cook, vs. white rice, which is 20 minutes. So, I put the rice in the rice cooker, and went on to do other things. Cartoonist kept saying, “Aren’t we going to make the rice pudding” and I kept saying, yes, when the rice is done.

Although the recipe called for grating the carrots, I ended up putting them into the food processor. Here is what was needed.

• 1 pound of carrots (peeled and grated (3 cups worth). I didn’t peel them.
• 1 can of light coconut milk (I just used the regular kind
• 1/2 cup of pure maple syrup (we used a quarter of a cup, as it is so sweet)
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon
• 1/2 cup golden raisins (we used black raisins)

So, We took the carrots, coconut milk and maple syrup and put them on the stove and cooked until it was all soft. Then we put in the rest of the mix and kept cooking until it was thick.

finished

When it was all done, we tasted it, and thought it tasted quite good, even though it didn’t look too good. Once it was cool, it still looked odd, but tasted great.

A keeper.

Cartoonist took that as well as the chilled apple soup, to school for lunch.

soup in the blender

Once I got the mix off the pot, I had to blend it again, with the apple sauce I had made the other day.

Problem was that it was quite hot, so I couldn’t just reach my hand in and move things around, not that I didn’t try, and keep discovering how hot the mixture was. It was supposed to be soup like, but it never got much thinner, no matter how much I mixed it in the blender.

Finally, I decided it was as mixed and as blended as it was going to be, so I poured it into a bowl, and stuck it in the fridge for four hours, which is what the recipe called for.

Cartoonist said, what? Four hours? She was hoping to eat it that night, but we couldn’t do that. It was already late, and I didn’t want to stay up any longer.

Finished soup

The next day, when it came time to taste the soup, we finally added the sparkling cider, and we both said it didn’t taste like soup, but rather really reach apple sauce.

I let my book keeper taste it, and she said it tasted really good, and wrote down the recipe, but I explained what we had changed, and said she might find hers would turn out more soup like than ours did, especially if she used apple juice, rather than the apple mush like things we used.

So now, we can use this for apple sauce on the next thing we make.

Mixing the apples to make apple juice

We decided, because of the weather, to make Chilled Apple and Carrot Soup. We had most of the ingredients, and those we didn’t have, that we didn’t get, were just those for the garnish, which we weren’t too worried about.

Two things the recipe called for were apple sauce and apple juice, both of which I figured I could make. Well, I had made the apple sauce the week before, so didn’t have to buy that, and we had made apple juice by accident before, so figured it wouldn’t be to hard to make on purpose.

I found the best way to get it to work in the blender was to first grind it up int he the mini-food processor. That worked ok, but seemed to be an extra step, and I would get frustrated, and try to make it go faster, which it didn’t want to do.

cutting up carrots

Meanwhile, Cartoonist was cutting up the other ingredients.. She cut up the 4 apples, and the 3 large carrots, and the 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest (which was about one lemon) and the juice of the lemon, while I was still grinding up the apples.  Once I had the apple juice sort of ready, we added it all together to simmer.

The sachet in the pot

We had gone to the store to buy clove and stick of cinnamon for the sachet, but hadn’t thought what I would put it in. I had not bought cheese clothe. So I took a napkin, and tied it up in that, and that seemed to work just fine. I have never used a sachet before, but liked how it gave a nice flavor to the mixture, without having to fish it out when it was all done.

Cartoonist kept worrying that the clothe was going to catch fire. I told her it wouldn’t, and it didn’t.

Once everything was cooked, we were thinking it would be all done, but no, there was going to be more to making this soup.

Here is what the recipe was:

• 5 apples, peels and cored and cubed
• 3 large carrots, peeled, and cubed
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest.
• 2 cups of apple juice
• 1/2 cup of apple sauce

The sachet had

• 1 small stick cinnamon
• 1 close
• 1 sprig fresh thyme

But this week, was different, she went off to a be in a wedding, so hasn’t been home for a few days, and I knew I couldn’t eat all the carrots. We had gotten a huge bunch from the CSA, and I had taken extra from the bounty table, forgetting she was going to be gone.

shredding carrots

So, to the recipe books, but I didn’t want to make carrot cake. I also wanted to use my mini-Cuisinart.

I finally found a carrot spice muffin recipe in the Gluten Free Baking Classics book, which I got recently, but hadn’t made anything from.

Did I alter the recipe. That I did. I almost wish I had altered it more, as it wasn’t quite as spicy as I like it.

Instead of 2 cups of brown rice flour, I used on cup of white rice flour and one cup of coconut flour, which I have been using more and more. The rest of the recipe I followed, but I didn’t put in sweetened coconut, as I figured I had the flavor already, and I used olive instead of canola oil, and 3 large eggs instead of two, because the mix seemed to dry. I also left out the walnuts.

Carrot muffins

So here are the ingredients I used:

• 1 cup coconut flour, 1 cup white rice flouer
• 2/3 cup raw sugar
• 1 Tbs baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2/3 tsp xanth gum
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups of shredded carrot
• 1/2 cup of half and half
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla.

Mix the dry together and mix the whet together then combine them, and put them in the muffin pan, which I did, and cook at 350 for about half an hour.

As I said, they weren’t bad. I think if I made them again I would add more spices.