Week Night Pot Pie

Brrr! I don't know about where you live, but Georgia has had some seriously cold weather lately. The school system I work for already used all of its snow days (all 3 of them) they had built into the schedule and have moved on to our first inclement weather "digital learning day".

With the weather bringing such a chill, I find myself wishing for comfort food. The kind of dish that smells like cozy and warms you up like your favorite blanket.

This pot pie recipe from the Minimalist Baker completely fit the bill!

It's fast. It's tasty. My non-vegan kids and husband didn't even miss the meat. I seriously can't oversell this pot pie.

The original recipe calls for this to be made with individual ramekins, but I don't own ramekins so I just used a casserole dish. Still worked out great. If you are fancy and have some ramekins hanging out in your kitchen, go for it. I'm sure they will look much nicer than mine.

This recipe also called for homemade biscuits. I'll admit, the recipe looked super simple and I likely could have made them super quickly. However, I am lazy and I had a can of vegan biscuits on hand. So I used those.

Weeknight Pot Pie
Adapted from The Minimalist Baker

what you need:

• 1 small yellow onion
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 2 cups veggie broth 
• 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables of choice (I used peas, carrots and  broccoli since my kids HATE green beans)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
• about 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 
• 2 bay leaves
• pinch each sea salt and black pepper
• 1 can vegan friendly bicuits
• 1-2 tbsp vegan butter (I like Earth Balance)

what to do:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Add 2 Tbsp olive oil to a large saucepan over medium heat. Then add onion and garlic and a pinch of salt and stir. Cook until soft – about 7 minutes.
3. Add the flour and stir with a whisk, then slowly whisk in the broth.
4. Add almond milk and bay leaves and stir. Simmer until the mixture is thickened (about 10 minutes).
5. While the sauce is thickening, get the biscuits out of the fridge and separate.
6. Once the sauce is thickened, add the frozen vegetables and cook for 4-5 more minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more salt and pepper if needed.
7. Discard the bay leaves and pour the mixture into an 8×8 baking dish. Top with vegan biscuits and brush the tops of the biscuits with melted vegan butter. Set your 8×8 dish on a baking sheet to catch overflow and bake until the biscuits are golden brown and the filling is bubbly (about 14-17 minutes). Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.
8. If making ahead of time, simply spoon the cooked veggie mixture into your dish, top with uncooked biscuits, and freeze. When ready to prepare, preheat oven to 425 degrees (218 C) and cook until the biscuits are golden brown and the mixture is bubbly – roughly 20-30 minutes.