Erin’s Easy Eats

This has long been a favorite at my house, back from the days when I was a vegetarian.  I bring it out when it starts to get cold, or I’m too cheap/poor to buy any meat.  Don’t be tempted to use a store bought crust – this one is nothing like pie crust and bakes up flaky and crumbly and moist and wonderful.  Get your fabulous husband to make the crust while you chop up millions of mushrooms and cook them (trying to look busy while he slaves over cutting butter into flour.  Ha. It’s really not that hard, though.)

Crust:

• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature (um, no, this is not going into the “healthy” category)
• 1 c. sour cream (you can use light if it makes you feel better)

Mix flour, baking soda and salt.  Cut in butter until dough resembles rough crumbs.  Stir in sour cream until just combined.  Here, you can roll it out, or you can mash about 2/3 of the dough into the bottom and up the sides of a deep dish pie pan (we use a round casserole.)  Reserve the other third of dough.  You can again, roll this out and do some fancy lattice, but I’m too lazy, so I make 6 “clay snakes” and lay them across the casserole to make a star shape.

Filling:

• 8 c. mushrooms, chopped (wowza!  I get 2 of the big packages of mushrooms, 1 button, one baby bella.)
• 2 c. chopped onions (about 2 medium sized ones, don’t be too precise here)
• 1 Tbs butter or olive oil
• 1 tsp. ground thyme
• Lots of ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 oz. cream cheese (again, use light if you want to make up for that butter in some nonsensical way)

Cook the onions in the oil/butter over medium heat until onions are translucent but not browned.  Add mushrooms (and the thyme) and let them cook until they release their own juices.  DO NOT ADD SALT until they do that, or they’ll get all tough and chewy.  Stir in pepper and salt, add cream cheese and stir until melted.  Pour into prepared pie crust.

Top filling with remaining pie crust, however you choose to do it.  Brush the exposed dough with a mixture of 1 egg and 1 Tbs milk to give a nice glaze.  Bake for 25-35 minutes (mine is always on the longer side of that) at 400 or until golden and poofy.

Tags: mushroom, pie, recipes, vegetarian