Today is 3/14. HAPPY PI DAY!
Even if you haven’t found the area of a circle since high school, “Pi Day” is still a great excuse for baking a couple of pies. This year I decided to bake a sweet and a savory pie. The sweet one is a Martha Stewart apple pie (recipe here), and I added a festive twist by interspersing a few shamrock cutouts with my flower cutouts. The recipe is a little time-consuming, but the result is very pretty!
The savory pie is roasted root vegetable with a rosemary crust. It was a big hit at dinner, and it was all we could do to resist eating the whole thing in one sitting. You can substitute in other vegetables according to your tastes.
Roasted Root Vegetable Pie with Rosemary Crust
Ingredients
- 1 3/8 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 4 to 6 tablespoons ice water
- 3 large beets, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 8 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 2 leeks, thinly sliced (white and pale green parts only)
- 1 large egg
- 1/3 cup milk
- fresh ricotta, optional
- grated parmesan, optional
- olive oil, salt, pepper
Directions
- Pulse flour, salt, and rosemary in a food processor. Add butter, and pulse until coarse crumbs form, about 10 seconds.
- With machine running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream just until dough holds together and is not wet or sticky, no longer than 30 seconds.
- Form dough into a disk. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.
- While dough is chilling, preheat oven to 400F. Toss the chopped root vegetables (don’t include the mushrooms or leeks) in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place these vegetables in a single layer on a baking sheet.
- Roast the vegetables at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until the veggies are tender.
- While the root veggies are roasting, heat 2 Tbl olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute, stirring occassionally, for about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and continue to saute for another 5 minutes, until both the leeks and mushrooms are soft. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Remove your chilled dough from the refrigerator and have a 9” pie plate at the ready. To make rolling it out easy: lightly flour a sheet of plastic wrap, place the dough on the plastic wrap, sprinkly it with a little more flour, and then top it with another layer of plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a (roughly) 10” round. Remove the top layer of plastic wrap and flip the dough over into the pie plate, then remove the remaining layer of plastic wrap. Gently press the dough into the pan, crimping the overhanging dough to form a pretty edge. Return the pan to the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- In a small bowl, stir together the egg with the milk. Set aside.
- Once your pan is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator. Spread the mushroom filling evenly into the bottom of the pan, then top with the roasted root vegetables. Pour the egg/milk mixture over the vegetables.
- Bake your pie for 20 minutes at 400, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 25-30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the liquid has set. 10 minutes before it’s done baking, you can dollop the pie with ricotta and sprinkle with grated parmesan if you would like, then return it to the oven to finish baking.
Serve warm and enjoy!
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