Mushroom Pot Pie

Happy Summer! Yesterday was the summer solstice, and summer has officially started.  In honor of the changing season, I thought I would make a special recipe that I have been wanting to experiment with for quite some time- Mushroom Pot Pie.  I love mushrooms, and I love down home comfort food like Pot pies, so it seamed like the perfect combination.

I decided that I wanted to put a few varieties of mushrooms in my pie, so I chose our favorite - portobello, as well as some baby portobello or crimini, some sliced white mushrooms, and shitake mushrooms.

Here is my recipe for Mushroom Pot Pie

• The equivalent of 4-5 pint size produce baskets of mushrooms- cleaned and cut up into various small chunks and slices
• 3 carrots peeled and cut into small cubes
• 3-4 ribs of celery thinly chopped
• 1 large onion chopped into small pieces
• 4 medium potatoes (I used red but any variety should do) cut into small cubes, and boiled until cooked, then drain and set aside.
• 2 cups vegetable or beef broth
• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• salt, pepper, Italian blend herbs
• a double pie crust ( I use the crisco pie crust recipe)

Preheat oven to 400 F. 

I started by cutting up my carrots, celery, and onion, because they take the longest amount of time to cook.  When they were cut up, I put them in a small sauce pan, on the back burner, along with the two cups of broth, and cooked on medium high until boiling, then reduced to a simmer and covered.  These will continue cooking while you work on every thing else.  Next get your potatoes boiling, drain and reserve when cooked through and tender.  Next I cleaned and chopped the mushrooms, and set them aside while I made my pie crust, I put the bottom crust in a nine inch pie dish, and rolled out the top, and set it aside, it would be a good idea to cover top crust with wax paper so it doesn't dry out while prepping the rest of the filling.  

I then melted the stick of butter, on medium, in a large skillet, and added the mushrooms to the melted butter.  Stir mushrooms into butter, and add Italian blend herbs.  Cook over medium to medium low, stir occasionally, keep a lid over mushrooms for part of the time as well.  Continue cooking until mushrooms are tender, and cooked through, they will shrink down considerably, but don't let them brown.  When they are cooked remove them from the butter with a slotted spoon, and set them aside in a bowl.  Reserve butter and any mushroom broth in skillet.

Here are the mushrooms just getting started.

Check your carrots, celery and onion, when they are tender and cooked through, remove them from the broth with a slotted spoon, and put into the bowl with the mushrooms.  Now it's time to make the gravy.  

Add 1/3 cup of flour into the melted butter in the skillet that the mushrooms where cooked in, if it looks like you don't have enough butter add another tablespoon or two.  Cook the flour and butter mixture until it is a nice paste like consistency for a minute or two over medium high heat.  Then add reserved broth, and salt and pepper to taste, and whisk into a nice gravy, if there isn't much broth left, you can add a bit of water and/or milk (I added a little of both) add in small amounts, while whisking continuously, until an nice thicker gravy is ready, you don't want it too thin or the pie will be too soupy.   

In a large pan or mixing bowl, add mushrooms, cooked veggies and potatoes.

Then pour half of the gravy over mixture and gently stir to combine.  Add more gravy until mixture looks like it has a good amount of gravy but is not too soupy.  Then pour into bottom pie crust.

Put the top on the pie crust and seal edges.  If you like, you can cut out a mushroom shape (I used a mushroom shaped cookie cutter) from left over dough, and attach to top of pie with a little water, cut slits into the top pie crust like shown.

  

Bake at 400 F. for 10-15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 F. and bake for another 30- 40 minutes until crust is golden brown.  It helps prevent spillover in your oven if you bake the pie on a cookie sheet.

I love the way the mushroom cutout turned out.

I served this with a nice summer salad, made with spring baby greens, sliced radishes, halved grapes and tossed with a simple dressing made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a little honey, grainy dijon mustard, and a tablespoon or two of finely chopped shallots (I never measure, I just mix it in a bowl until it looks and tastes right).  The salad turned out great, the grapes added a nice fresh sweetness.

The whole family really loved this meal, and between the pie and the salad it was nice to serve so many different veggies, makes a mom happy. :)

This special meal was worth the extra time it took to prep and cook, sometimes it is just nice to take your time in the kitchen and enjoy some slow cooking.  

I hope everyone is enjoying the start of summer, our garden is finally getting going, and I am looking forward to doing a garden update within the next couple of days.