Beef and mushroom pie

In cleaning out the fridge last week, I came across a bag of mushrooms I'd bought a while earlier. These were supposed to get chopped up into salads, but the lettuce had gone south and was inedible. I didn't want to waste these mushrooms, however. They needed to get used up before they went bad.

Assessing what ingredients we had on hand, I decided to try my hand at beef-and-mushroom pie. My philosophy is "Everything tastes better in a pie crust." I modified an online recipe I found here.

First step: Defrost some bacon and beef (cube steaks, in this case).

I diced and fried up the bacon bits.

While those were cooking, I diced up the cube steaks and added flour.

I also gathered up various other ingredients: Beef broth, carrots, garlic.

Slicing mushrooms.

The recipe called for sautéing the mushrooms in olive oil, but why waste the bacon fat?

I also browned the meat in the bacon fat.

Adding flour and spices to the carrots.

Next, red wine. I loathe red wine with all my heart, but we had inherited this bottle and I kept it on hand for cooking. It's great for cooking.

Finally, I threw all the components together in a pot and just let them simmer for a couple of hours on the lowest possible heat.

When the simmering was done, I rolled out a pie crust and pulled everything together. This is the uncooked pie.

The baked result was utterly dee-lish.

Here's the recipe I used. Older Daughter doesn't care for onions, otherwise I would have added a couple. Feel free to modify for your own family's tastes:

• Six slices bacon
• 1 lb. mushrooms
• 2 lbs. steak (cube steak or other cuts)
• 2 cups diced carrots (and diced onions, if you wish)
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 cup red wine (or Guinness beer, if you have some)
• Thyme and bay leaves (we have thyme in the garden, but no bay, so I just used thyme)

- Dice and fry the bacon and reserve the fat; put aside the bacon
- Slice and sauté the mushrooms in the bacon fat; put aside the mushrooms
- Cut up steaks and mix with 1/4 cup flour, salt and pepper to taste
- Add 1/4 cup flour to the veggies and sauté in bacon fat until veggies are soft (I skipped the sautéing since the carrots were canned and already soft)
- Brown the beef in the remaining bacon fat, along with thyme and garlic
- Combine all ingredients (bacon, veggies, mushrooms, beef broth, wine/beer, beef) and let simmer on low for a couple of hours.

Pie crust:

• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups lard/shortening/whatever
• Enough cold water to make a dough

Roll out two-thirds of the dough to fit a 9x13 pan. Add filling. Roll out remaining dough to cover the pie, pinch edges.

Bake at 400F until crust is golden

Bon appétit!

Two-day meat pie

It was my turn to host our neighborhood potluck last week. I wanted to make something different, and spent a few days noodling around what it should be. In the end, I decided to make a (beef) meat pie. Not terribly creative, perhaps, but it was tasty.

It took two days to make. The first day, I took two chuck roasts and put them in the Crockpot (sometimes called a slow cooker).

Then I peeled and diced five potatoes...

...which I also added to the Crockpot. I also added about a quarter cup of Worcestershire sauce and nothing else.

I let the meat and potatoes cook slowly all day. Then in the evening, I took out the meat...

...and shredded it. Then I put the meat and potatoes in the fridge overnight.

Mr. Darcy got some of the fatty scraps, which he thought was just a splendid idea.

The next day, I started the pie itself. I chopped up two onions...

...then I added peas, carrots, and garlic. Isn't it wonderful how much of this pie comes from homegrown or home-raised ingredients?

Here's the filling mixture, ready for the pie crust. For spices (in addition to garlic), I added salt, thyme, pepper, sage, and mustard powder.

Making the crust.

I made one large (9x13) and one small (9x9) pie.

As it turned out, thanks to the nasty snowy weather outside, only two families made it to the potluck, so I only cooked the smaller pie (and put the larger one in the freezer for a future potluck). I baked the pie in the wood cookstove's oven.

A nice hearty meat pie -- perfect for nasty snowy weather.

Here's the recipe I used:

Meat pies (1 large, 1 small)

Into the crock pot:

2 chuck roasts
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
5 medium potatoes, diced
Simmer all day, then shred meat and refrigerate overnight

Filling:

Shredded meat + potatoes
Two jars carrots
1 jar peas
2 chopped onions
½ cup water
To taste: garlic, salt, thyme, pepper, sage, mustard powder

Crust:

6 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups lard
¾ cup water