A round-a-bout vegan Mushroom & Leek Pie.

Thursday is like Christmas.

Each Thursday a man from Juice Quest delivers to me a box of locally grown organic/pesticide free/conventional fruit and vegetables. It's always a nice surprise to open the box and find inspiration for this weeks meals. It's $35 delivered or $30 pick up from Magill (Adelaide only- sorry!) and it's more than enough to feed this little family of 2 adults and a baby for a week. Actually, I have a backlog of fruit at the moment so I asked for a 'veg only' box this week. It kicks arse. I love veggies. (This is not a sponsored post, by the way. I actually love this service. I'm not a supermarket shopper and I like surprises.)

The reason I bring that up is that yesterday I opened the box to find a shitload of sexy looking mushrooms. They were small but fat. The kind that you could imagine being brined and canned to make champignons. 

My go-to for mushrooms is normally soup. Cream of mushroom and Cream of Pumpkin being my favourites. 

I wanted to make something different this week. I've been playing with dough a lot lately. It's much easier to play with than I imagined. Last week was all about pizza. Yesterday, it was all about pie. With my trusty rolling pin, picked up from the local Salvo's for like, a dollar, it's all go. I'm one of those people that like to cook from scratch for so many reasons. 

It's cheaper. It tastes better. It doesn't use as much packaging. It's really not as time consuming as you would imagine. 

Plus, it gives me a feeling of what it would be like to have my own cooking show as I dance, sing and explain what I'm doing to keep my 5 month old daughter entertained.

I didn't take a list of ingredients as I didn't measure them but after posting photos of the pie on Instagram I was asked to do a write up about it, so here goes. 

Vegan Mushroom & Leek Pie

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients: 

All measurements are approximate. Use you're judgement and adjust accordingly (I know that sounds obvious, but it takes all types to spin this world.)

For the dough. 

•2 cups of plain flour. 

•Half a cup of vegan margarine. 

•2 Tablespoons of cold water. 

For the filling:

•A tablespoon of vegan margarine. 

•3 cups of sliced mushrooms. 

•One sliced leek. 

•2 cloves of crushed garlic. 

•One star anise (optional, but Jamie Oliver taught me that frying one of these babies with mushrooms makes the flavour more 'meaty'. Always remove before serving, though).

•A small handful of fresh parsley leaves.

•Half a cup of coconut milk. 

•One teaspoon of powdered vegetable stock.

•A splash of white wine. 

•A tablespoon of flour. 

Method: 

The dough. 

Place the flour into a bowl. Add in the margarine and mix it together with your hands. Add a little water in and keep keeding to form a nice dough. One it's formed, roll it into a ball, put it into a small container and put it in the fridge while you make the filling. 

The filling:

Melt the margarine in a frypan over a medium heat. Add the mushrooms, onions and garlic. Fry until they're golden and cooked. Not too cooked, though. Just nicely browned. Have a taste. Would you eat that as is? If yes, then you're good.

Add the rest of the ingredients, sprinkling the flour over the mushrooms so that you don't end up with clumps. Cook the mixture down until it's a little saucy. Add salt & pepper to taste. Taste it. Add whatever make you the happiest.

Take a pie dish, a rolling pin and grab your dough from the fridge. Roll about 3/4 of the the pastry out so that it fits into your pie dish. You want a thin crust, maybe half a centimetre thick, or as thin as you can get it. Put that in your pie dish to make the base. You may need to grease your pan if it's not non-stick. 

Next, add the filling, remembering to remove the star anise. 

Roll out some more pastry to make the top of the pie and put it on the top, pressing down the sides. Cut a couple of holes in the top to allow air to escape. 

Cook for about 30 minutes in an oven set to 180C- or at least until it's browned. My oven is temperamental with temperatures  but I think this is a good starting point. You may need more time.  

And that's it! I served mine with a jacket potato, gravy, kale coleslaw & boiled beetroot. 

Winner! Winner! Mushroom Dinner! Or something. Haha!