Baking A Meal-In-One Pot Pie

For today's blog, I make a pot pie that is a whole meal in one. You can prepare it beforehand and keep it in the freezer until the day you need it, or you can have it immediately as a wonderfully convenient meal. However you serve this, the family is bound to love it! I find it very convenient to make a couple of these ahead of time and to freeze it for when life gets too busy to prepare regular healthy meals. The first school term is usually filled with these days when the kids have sport activities and other extra-murals to attend to. Delicious, wholesome and healthy, this Meal-In-One Pot Pie is a winner with my family.

Start by boiling some potatoes. Put the potatoes in a pot, season with salt and add water. Boil until soft.

In the meantime, chop up 2 onions.

Brown the onions in a little oil in a large pot.

Add roughly 1 kg mince (you may prefer diced chicken or meat).

Brown the meat. Season with salt and pepper and add a little water to cook the meat.

When nearly done, add some herbs of your choice. I added oregano, sweet basil and parsley. I also added a rather large splash of red wine vinegar.

A hint of garlic and chilies have never done any harm. I hate being pedantic about how you should season your meat. You will know best what you like. I merely share my ideas to serve as a starting point for you to do your own thing.

I then added roughly 1/2 kg of mixed veggies. I firmly believe that no meal is complete without the addition of vegetables. I am of course a huge vegetable lover (but certainly not a vegetarian), so my motives may be questionable!

Prepare a large oven dish with non-stick spray. You can also make this dish as 2-3 smaller family size pies, or even as single serving, individual pot pies. For the purposes of this blog, I was preparing it for a large number of people and made it into a large pie. You will know your own needs best.

Once the potatoes are cooked, you can drain the water. To cool them quickly, you can give them a rinse in cold water. Simply peel the skin away.

Slice the potatoes in the bottom of the oven dish.

In a jug, mix together some cream (or sour cream), salt, pepper, mint, and red wine vinegar. If using sour cream, you may opt to leave out the vinegar.

I did not measure anything, but will add this photo if it will help you in determining more or less how much to include of each.

Pour this mixture over the potatoes.

You can mix it with the potatoes, if you prefer. If the potatoes start breaking up,or turning into mash, it is quite alright. I used the Up-to-date (UTD) variety, which is very soft when cooked and mine was very happy to turn into mash.

Pour the mince over the potato base.

You will need a roll of puff pastry.

Unroll the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. flour both sides of the pastry.

Roll the dough out to comfortably cover your oven dish/dishes.

The easiest way to transfer a large piece of dough, is to roll it onto the cake pin.

Unroll the dough over the oven dish.

The dough should be larger than the pie.

Roll the overhanging sides in. Shape the edges between your fingers.

Brush the pie with egg yolk.

Prick the dough with a fork to create vents for hot air to escape. If you are going to freeze the pie to use at a later date, this the time to cover it well and pop into the freezer. When you are ready to use it, you can bake it at 180 °C for roughly an hour.

If using immediately, bake in a preheated oven at 200 °C for roughly 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve the pie hot from the oven.

You now have a lovely wholesome meal that would require very little effort on a day when you don't have time to prepare a meal. Keep a couple of these handy in the freezer.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.

Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
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