Earlier this week we showed you the homemade green bean casserole we made for Christmas this year, so today we’re featuring the other vegetarian dish we made for the holiday. This pot pie was our hearty main course, stuffed with vegetables and a little bit of cheese, all topped (and held up on the bottom) by some flaky puff pastry. It was a great meat-free center to our dinner, and it was even better as leftovers the next day. We adapted it from this recipe in the New York Times, and we’ll show you how you too can craft this veggie-centric savory pie.
You’ll need:
- An onion
- A 2-pound butternut squash
- A small bunch of kale
- Sage
- Thyme
- Garlic
- Red pepper flakes
- A 5-ounce block of provolone
- A 17.5-ounce package of frozen puff pastry sheets
- Pecorino-Romano or Parmesan cheese
- An egg
- Olive oil
- Cooking spray
- Flour
You’ll want to start by doing some prep work: first, take your puff pastry sheets out, unroll them all the way, and let them sit out to defrost. Next, chop your onion, tear all your kale into bite-sized pieces, mince 2 garlic cloves, pluck off a tablespoon of thyme leaves, and chop up a tablespoon of sage leaves. Cut your provolone into small cubes, grate around 3 tablespoons of Pecorino-Romano or Parmesan, and finally peel and de-seed your squash before cutting it into cubes.
Now measure out 3 tablespoons of olive oil and warm over medium-high heat in a skillet. Add in the onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook for about 5 minutes until it just begins to brown, then pour the onion and oil into a large mixing bowl. Add in the squash, kale, sage, thyme, and garlic, plus more salt and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, and mix well. Now take one of your puff pastry sheets and roll it out on a lightly floured surface until it’s around 12 inches wide. Place this into the bottom of a square glass casserole dish that you’ve coated in cooking spray, letting the pastry overhang on the sides, then pile in the vegetables, then top with your provolone.
Sprinkle the Pecorino-Romano or Parmesan over everything, then roll the other pastry sheet out to the same size and place it on top of the vegetables, making sure to match it up with the sheet underneath. Trim the corners off so the pastry sheets hang only slightly off the sides of the casserole dish, then use a fork to crimp the edges of the top and bottom sheet together.
Beat an egg and brush it over the top of your pot pie, then place the casserole dish on a baking sheet and cook at 350°F for an hour.
When it comes out of the oven, let your pot pie cool for a little bit, then you can cut it into wedges to eat!
This was a bit of a nontraditional pot pie: butternut squash and kale aren’t usually the types of vegetables you see in this dish, and instead of a creamy gravy binding everything together we used 2 different kinds of cheese. We also decided to craft the pie from puff pastry sheets instead of making a dough ourselves, which saved us some time but also gave us a base for this pot pie that was nicely light and flaky. All together it makes for a delicious and filling winter dish that’s got some good vegetables, lots of flavor from the herbs, and a tasty pastry shell to hold everything. It was perfect for Christmas, or for any other good meal you want to cook up this season.