Pi day! Ideas for interesting dinner pies?

[Anonymous]

My kids asked this morning for pie for pi day. Not just dessert, but also for dinner. This is the first year my oldest, a former math hater, has a great math teacher and is getting excited about numbers (gave the family a mini pi lesson at breakfast!), so I'm willing to go for it to make it special.

Any ideas on good vegetarian dinner pies? We had pizza last night. My default will be a quiche, but I'm curious to try something that will feel more special since we eat quiche or frittata at least weekly.

Well stocked pantry and store around the corner. I'll have about an hour between getting home and dinner time and could prep or run to store for about 20 minutes at lunch. Ideas on how to make this extra fun?

[Anonymous]

So much fun!

Since you are up for it - a veggie pot pie.

OR pancakes!

[Anonymous]

Since its St. Paddy's week, Shephards.

[Anonymous]

Beef tamale pie!

[Anonymous]

Look up Lauren Ko of Pieometry fame. (lokokitchen on Insta)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Beef tamale pie!

As vegetarian as it gets.

[Anonymous]

How about a veggie pot pie? Or to make it quicker, veggie pot pie style filling in a phyllo crust? Ottolenghi has a recipe for a cauliflower cheese pie that’s great too, but may be a tad more involved than you might want on a weeknight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about a veggie pot pie? Or to make it quicker, veggie pot pie style filling in a phyllo crust? Ottolenghi has a recipe for a cauliflower cheese pie that’s great too, but may be a tad more involved than you might want on a weeknight.

Op here. I made a delicious cauliflower pie years ago that I completely forgot about till your post. I think it had a grated potato crust. Thank you for reminding me!

I've never actually made a pot pie with a flour based crust, veggie or otherwise. Is it hard to keep the crust from getting soggy or gooey? The Great British Bake off makes it sound hard to avoid soggy bottom!

I have made Shepard's pie before going vegetarian. Tamale also sounds interesting. I wonder if beans will provide enough of a chewy contrast in place of ground meat?

Thanks for all these ideas! I will use at least one today and more for future baking to especially before the weather gets hot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look up Lauren Ko of Pieometry fame. (lokokitchen on Insta)

Op again, those are gorgeous!
My kids will love looking at those pictures.

[Anonymous]

Tomato pie is a classic southern dish, but certainly better in the summer with fresh tomatoes. Also might be more than an hour to salt and dry out the tomatoes a bit, but with dryer grocery store tomatoes might not take that long.

Another easy idea might be quesadillas - instead of folding one tortilla do two tortillas and then cut.

Tostados could be easy, too.

You could do empanadas or something filled, too - it's half a circle.

[Anonymous]

Pizza pie!

[Anonymous]

OP, re the pot pie crust question, I do a veggie pot pie without the bottom crust. I use either a puff pastry sheet or ready made pie dough for the top crust. There is a recipe for a veggie pot pie on the Food Network site that I've had good luck with (a lot of chopping, though, so may be hard to get it done within your time constraints).

I'm making a vegetarian tamale pie (from the Cook's Illustrated vegetarian cookbook) tonight, but it takes a while, so I did most of the steps yesterday.

[Anonymous]

For quiche, I buy refrigerated pie crust in the dairy aisle (2 per package). Pillsbury makes them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about a veggie pot pie? Or to make it quicker, veggie pot pie style filling in a phyllo crust? Ottolenghi has a recipe for a cauliflower cheese pie that’s great too, but may be a tad more involved than you might want on a weeknight.

Op here. I made a delicious cauliflower pie years ago that I completely forgot about till your post. I think it had a grated potato crust. Thank you for reminding me!

I've never actually made a pot pie with a flour based crust, veggie or otherwise. Is it hard to keep the crust from getting soggy or gooey? The Great British Bake off makes it sound hard to avoid soggy bottom!

I have made Shepard's pie before going vegetarian. Tamale also sounds interesting. I wonder if beans will provide enough of a chewy contrast in place of ground meat?

Thanks for all these ideas! I will use at least one today and more for future baking to especially before the weather gets hot!

Re: soggy crust, I blind bake the crust, and then put the filling in. The blind bake helps keep the bottom from getting soggy.

[Anonymous]

I have an old cookbook - Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (If a cookbook ever had the wrong title this is it - but I digress)

But this has some tarts and galettes that might be interesting depending on your families preferences.

Like a tomato and red pepper tart. Or a mushroom and goat cheese galette.