Quinoa Pot Pies

Quinoa Pot Pies

Pies are such a popular food, especially here in Australia! It seems to almost be  a traditional dish! Well here is one of my spins on the good ol trusty pie. These are a delicious homemade vegetarian pie with Quinoa based pastry. Perfect with salad for dinner, for lunchboxes and picnics. Serve with tasty sauce like a great chilli jam, (on the Sunshine Coast I love the stunning Noosa Chili Jam! ).

Ingredients
• 1 cup vege mince (I use planet organic here, it is a great local company but sanitarium , quorn or any tvp would work -or even a meat version if that's your thing!)
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots, peeled chopped into small pieces
• 2 zucchini’s, chopped into small pieces
• ½ cup fresh green beans, chopped
• 1 red capsicum, chopped
• ½ cup broccoli, finely chopped
• ¼ cup potato, cut into small cubes
• 2 cups mashed potato
• 4 teaspoons Gourmet Garden garlic paste or 3 cloves Australian garlic, finely chopped
• ¼ cup gravy powder
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• karom himalayan salt to taste
• cracked black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup water
Pastry
• ¼ cup olive oil or Maleny Avocado oil
• ¼ cup butter 0r 1/2 cup butter if omitting the oil
• 1 cup Quinoa flour
• 1 cup organic plain or plain spelt flour
• ¼ cup sour cream
• baking paper
• aluminium pie baking cases or baking tray

Method
• Pre heat oven to 180ç.
• Combine pastry ingredients in a large bowl.
• Knead together to make a smooth dough.
• In a saucepan bring the stock to the boil. Add in the Vege Mince.
• Simmer together for 6 minutes, remove from heat.
• In a small saucepan par boil the carrot and potato until it can be just pierced with a fork, do not overcook.
• In a frying pan heat the olive oil, add in the onion and garlic. Sauté until slightly transparent.
• Adding in the thyme and turmeric, stirring though.
• Then add in the carrot, zucchini, green beans and broccoli , stir for 3 minutes.
• Mix in the vege mince and sprinkle in the gravy powder, stirring in well.
• Pour small amounts of water in, stirring until the whole cup has been added on a low heat. Add more if needed.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Gently roll out the pastry between two sheets of baking paper, until it is nice and thin.
• Cut out circles slightly bigger than the pie cases.
• Line each pie case carefully with a pastry circle base.
• Fill with vege mince mixture, top with mashed potato and finish with a second pastry circle.
• Firm down edges of pastry on top to seal each pie. Brush with milk.
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until pastry is nice and golden.
• Serve with a tasty sauce and fresh salad.

Notes
• Make a rich mushroom version by swapping the veggies with lots of fresh mushrooms and torn baby spinach leaves.
• Using Quinoa flour makes this a more fragile pastry so be careful when cutting out the circles.
• Quinoa is a super food with many health benefits making this is a fantastic ingredient to use, if you find the flavour too strong use a little less quinoa and a little more plain flour.

Toddler Tips
• Make them toddler sized using miniature pie cases.

This recipe I created as a commercial project for supermarket, the Maleny IGA and the Local Product Local Recipe - recipe cards I did for them featuring products from the Sunshine Coast region.
I am available for recipe creation work and can create print ready beautiful unique recipes whatever your needs for your commercial, business and personal purposes, contact me for more information.