Savory Pie Season is upon us! As the days get shorter, and the temperatures cool off at night, we find that baking non-dessert pies is a great way to match the ambient changes. They warm the house with their baking time, and they warm the soul with their ingredient blends. This year, we decided to kick off our slate of savory pies by relying on a bunch of Turnips and turnip greens from our CSA. We then added some carrots and onions to round out the flavours before adding pureed cannellini beans to bind our ingredients and add protein, all of which worked out really well.
The big issue we experienced was that we assumed (dangerous, no?) that we had a pie crust in the freezer, so we set it out to defrost. When we opened it, we realized we had defrosted phyllo dough! The rookie mistake was set up by our past action to consolidate…when we put a pie crust and a phyllo dough into the same box to save space before later using the pie crust thus leaving a set of phyllo dough alone in a pie crust box. Anyway, since we already had our dough defrosted, we decided we’d just use it instead of whipping up a Short Crust Pastry Dough. Luckily, it worked! By layering, we built a solid base to keep our pie together when we cut and served it…and our mistake approach gave us some nice crispy pieces atop to enjoy as well!
Time: 75 Minutes
Ingredients:
- 9″ Pie Crust or 8 Sheets of Phyllo Dough
- 4 Large Carrots
- 5 Medium Turnips
- 1 Onion.
- 5 Turnips worth of Turnip Greens. You can use a bunch of spinach or arugula if you haven’t got turnip greens.
- 1 Can of Cannellini/Great Northern Beans
- Salt
- Pepper
- Cheese. We used Shredded Cheddar, but other salty cheeses like Gruyere or Feta would also be good.
Method:
- Peel your carrots and turnips, and then shred using a box grater or the fine shredding plate of your food processor (we recommend this). Then, dice an onion finely, and set all of these aside in a bowl.
- Wilt your turnip greens in a large pan with a little butter. As your turnip greens wilt, open your can of beans, drain, and rinse.
- When your turnip greens have wilted, transfer to your food processor or blender, and add in your beans and a little olive oil. Puree.
- Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a large pan, and then add your carrots, turnips, and onions. Sauté for 10 or so minutes while stirring occasionally.
- As your filling cooks, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, and give your pie pan a quick oil spray.
- If using Pie Crust, roll it, and lay it in your pie sheet.
- If using phyllo, lay two sheets together over the middle of the pan so they are sticking out the sides. Spray a little oil on the top sheet, and lay another set of two perpendicular to your first ones. Continue doing this until you’ve got 8 sheets used, and your pie pan is completely covered with dough (it will stick out over the sides).
- Pour your bean/turnip green puree into your carrot/turnip/onion pan, and mix it all together. Add a little salt and pepper as you go.
- Once all of your filling ingredients are combined, scoop and spread them into your pie/phyllo crust.
- Top your ingredients with your cheese of choice, and then fold the excess phyllo over the top of your filling. Spray the folded phyllo with olive oil, and press it down lightly.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes to get your phyllo nice and crispy and golden brown.
- Plate, devour, and enjoy!
