I have an old recipe book… one of those little soft cover books that you buy for $2.95 at the supermarket check out. It’s called ‘Tasty Mince Recipes’.
One page of that books is covered in stains and barely readable in places where the pages have been stuck together with various cooking residue and then ripped apart again. The recipe on that page is a for a basic meat pie and filth and stickiness is a sure sign that is one of our favourite meals.
Over the years I’ve mucked around with the original recipe and modified it to fit everyone’s likes and dislikes, and it is this old recipe that forms the basis for one of our favourite dinners – Beef and Veggie Pot Pies.
| Beef and Veggie Pot Pies |
- 500gms minced beef
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1 cup stock
- 2-4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup tomato sauce
- 3/4 cup red lentils (soaked or cooked till soft)
- 1 1/2 cups of frozen veggies
- mixed herbs and mustard to taste
- Puff Pastry sheets for the top, or you could use mashed potato
- Cook the minced beef in a large pan with a little oil till cooked through. Add the flour and stir well over a medium heat for 1-2 minutes. Then add the stock and the lentils (drained as much as possible) and stir through.
- Next add the Worcestershire sauce, more or less depending on how much you like the flavour, and the tomato sauce, herbs and mustard, more or less of those too depending on taste.
- Finally add the frozen veggies. We use peas, corn and carrots but any mixture is fine, or you could dice and cook fresh veggies if you prefer.
- Let the pie filling simmer away over a low heat for a while until most of the liquid has evaporated then allow to cool a little.
- While you are waiting for the filling to cool, grease 6 ramekins or small dishes (we got ours at the two dollar shop!) and set them on an oven tray. Pre-heat your oven 210 C.
- [img src=”https://picklebums.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/beef-and-veggie-pot-pies2.jpg” alt=”beef and veggie pot pies prep” title=”beef-and-veggie-pot-pies2″ width=”450″ height=”679″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9969″ /]
- Let your sheets of puff pastry defrost a little – we use two sheets to cut enough circles for the lids of our pies. Use an extra ramekin to cut around and just for fun we use play dough letters to put the first initial of everyone on their pie lids.
- Carefully spoon your pie filling into your ramekins, top with the pastry lids and bake in the hot hot oven for about 15 minutes. When the pastry is puffed up and golden, reduce the oven temp to around 180 C and cook for a further 20 minutes.
You’ve probably noticed that I am trying out a new recipe format. Thanks to Tinkerlab who pointed me in the direction of the Easy Recipe Plugin.
I’m hoping this will make the recipes easier to print out – just hit the little print link at the top of the recipe and it will take you to a printable page minus all the extra bloggy stuff. I am still working on formatting and playing around so please let me know what you think.
PlanningQueen says
These look great Kate. My kids would love the individual serve idea too. How do you find the plugin. I have downloaded it, but am hesitant to rely on a plugin in case there comes compatibility issues down the track. Looks good though.
katef says
I’ve only just played with it today… was a bit fiddly to get it to look how I wanted it, and I don’t like that I have to switch to visual mode to edit the recipe in my post… but will see how it goes. I want to have a play with it on my test blog at some stage and see what happens when I disable the plugin… so will let you know :)
Jode says
Great recipe Kate….i think i actually have that same book lol! I like to add lentils too…love your initials idea though…going to poach that one! Your recipe plug in looks great…how very fancy!!! shall try to print tomorrow as the twins are asleep at the moment and our printer could wake the dead i believe!i have come to realise that i add worcestershire sauce to just about everything i make with mince…love that product!
BTW…could you point me in the direction of your printable meal planner you mentioned? I’m sure i have seen it before but can’t seem to find it now….i know it is probably very easy to find…sorry!!!
katef says
Oh yes I forgot that we add lentils… we add lentils to almost everything! LOL
Montly menu planner can be found here… https://picklebums.com/2011/03/07/montly-menu-plan/
There’s a weekly and fortnightly version here too https://picklebums.com/2011/03/14/more-menu-plans/
Marita says
Yum. I might have to visit our local $2 shop and see what I can find in the way of ramekins :)
Kelly @ HT and T says
This is a wonderful idea! I’ve never thought of making individual pies for my kids, but I think they’d be more likely to eat them this way. Thank you :)
New follower, loving your blog x