kambriel: (lepidopterist)
[personal profile] kambriel
First meal of the new year :)

Potato pies w/spinach, alfredo sauce, portobello mushroom, black & red pepper, garlic & thyme. A warm, savoury start to 2011.

After it baked most of the way through, I sprinkled the top with some grated parmesan, and encircled the crust with black olives, and some little dabs of colby jack cheese.

Off to eat!





Recipe-wise, I made it all up along the way. I did have to improvise after realizing I didn't have certain "basic" ingredients on hand. For instance, the mashed potatoes normally require milk (I'd have used soy milk) and water, but I didn't have the soy milk on hand. I thought of what else I could do, and chose to use half a jar of alfredo pasta sauce in its place, along with portobello mushroom soup for added moisture. I'm glad I had to do this, because all of the flavours melded together seamlessly into something ~truly delicious~. This also kept the potatoes very thick, rich and flavourful, a perfect filling for the pies!

Ingredients:

Pillsbury pie crusts (2)
1 small box of Condensed Portobello Mushroom soup (from Trader Joe's)
1 box Garlic Mashed potatoes (Whole Foods)
1/2 jar Alfredo Sauce (Trader Joes)
1/3 of a stick of butter
1 can spinach

Seasonings:
Thyme (just sprinkled some in my palm)
Black Pepper (I wanted it to have a good warmth/kick, so I added a decent amount of "what looked right")
Red Pepper flakes (several shakes worth)

Topping:
Grated Parmesan
sliced black olives
extra cheese (I used colby jack) if desired for crust

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

First, I brought approx. 3 1/2 cups water (with a little sprinkle of sea salt) to a boil in a large pot, with the butter added in ~ melting as the water heated up. Then you remove the boiling water from the heat, and pour the potato flakes in (the box had two packets in it, I used both), quickly adding in the mushroom soup and alfredo sauce and give it a good stir to integrate everything while it's still nice and hot. At this point, you can also add the black and red pepper flakes, thyme, and any other herbs you might like ~ stirring it all together.

Put the lid back on the pot, and let it sit for a few minutes while thoroughly hand-squeezing out the moisture from the spinach (too much moisture isn't good for the crust). Pinch off little dollops of the spinach and drop them into the pot of potatoes, stirring it all together again.

Roll out the pie crust into a pie dish (one per pie). Fill it up with the potato mixture (half of the mixture for each pie), smoothing the top out a bit once you're done, and gently rolling over the top edges of the dough. You could pinch it into little scallops, but I just wanted a rustic "enveloped" look.

I'm pretty sure after putting these in the oven, I set the timer for 15 minutes, but after about 10, it looked good, so I pulled them out and sprinkled some grated parmesan on top, and ringed it with sliced black olives and added some little pieces of colby jack cheese near the edge of the crust. This is where you'd generally add foil to the edge of the crust to keep it from burning, but I wanted to try something else, and it worked perfectly ~ kept the crust from browning/drying out too much, while adding even more flavour.

At this point, I put the pies back in the oven for a few more minutes (maybe 4-5), basically, I peeked in and saw the cheese on the edge of the crust bubbling, and c'est finis :)

Then patiently (this is the hard part), let it cool for 10 minutes or so... and devour!

Normally, I'd suggest other options for what could be used, but this tastes about 100 times better than the photo looks, so I'm just listing it exactly as they were made :)

~ Kambriel

[Kambriel.com ~ Etsy ~ Bluesky]

Date: 2011-01-01 10:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yagathai.livejournal.com
Delicious!

Date: 2011-01-03 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yagathai.livejournal.com
=D Thanks! It only pops up as my default icon from Thanksgiving to New Years. I shall have to change it today.

Date: 2011-01-02 12:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
We blissed out for about an hour after eating it... definitely one of the best *tasting* pies I've ever eaten.

Date: 2011-01-01 11:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ex-maehymn.livejournal.com
whoa YUM! Can you point me towards a recipe?! That sounds amazing.

Date: 2011-01-01 11:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thatursula.livejournal.com
Actually, yes, we do! Request for recipe seconded / motion carried.

Date: 2011-01-02 01:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
I just wrote one and added it to the post :)

Date: 2011-01-02 06:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thatursula.livejournal.com
Hooray! Thank you!

Date: 2011-01-02 12:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] victorine.livejournal.com
Those look so incredibly delicious!!!

Date: 2011-01-02 01:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
And they taste ~far~ better even than they look! I thought it was going to be an improvisatory one-off, but I'm going to need to try and remember how they were made so I can recreate them again in the future.

Date: 2011-01-02 01:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cupcake-goth.livejournal.com
I am now trying to figure out if I have the ingredients to make something similar. They look (and sound!) so tasty!

Date: 2011-01-02 03:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
If you don't, you should try and recreate it after doing some grocery shopping... it's very much so worth it.

(I hope you liked your deathrock jabot! Also, let me know if you need more of the pink striped fabric. It's so wide, you might only need something like 10 yards instead of 15...)

Date: 2011-01-02 01:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] miss-adventure.livejournal.com
The best pie in London! [grin]

Date: 2011-01-02 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
I believe they just might be, but ~honestly~ ;)

Date: 2011-01-02 03:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] missmoonlight74.livejournal.com
*hungry* ;)
Thank you for sharing!!

Date: 2011-01-02 03:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
I wish I could *actually* share some with you. The taste is worlds better than the picture :)

Date: 2011-01-02 03:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] missmoonlight74.livejournal.com
awwww...thank you!:)

Date: 2011-01-04 02:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tadesignsbynya.livejournal.com
OOooh this is going in my recipe book and I will have to try it very soon. Sounds so delicious

Date: 2011-01-04 07:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com
I'm so happy to hear you're going to give it a try ~ I hope it turns out deliciously for you!

Date: 2011-01-07 07:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tadesignsbynya.livejournal.com
I'm sure that it will, I'll let you know when I get to try it :)
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