Meat pies with whole wheat pie crust

Do you read Terry Pratchett? We love his Discworld series. We try to get one or two of his novels on audiobooks for our summer travels each year...we just love his dry sense of humor and all of the off-beat culture references.

Anyway, one of his characters is a fairly unsavory fellow, and he pops up selling yucky meat pies in many of the books. Every time I make these pasties, my hubby calls them Dibbler's meat pies. These, of course, are way better. :)

As promised, I took our leftover potroast, and used it to make these pasties. (Hubby was thrilled to discover that after taking out the three cups needed for the pasties, there was still a lunch of meat leftover for him.)

This is a Cook's Country recipe. It was published with their Joe Booker stew as a way to use up leftover stew. When I made the recipe several years ago, we thought the stew was okay, but the pasties were divine. Since then, I've made them with all sorts of similar left overs: stew, pot roast, brisket, etc. They're always amazing.

One of the biggest changes I've made since we began our unprocessed journey is my attempt to eliminate white flour. So, knowing these pasties were on the menu, I went in search of whole wheat pie crust recipes. There weren't that many out there. I found two from Bob's Red Mill, and eventually settled on this one. The other one was 100% whole wheat, and I just wasn't sure I was brave enough to try 100% my first time out.

I had also read recently that you can substitute coconut oil (which is used a lot in unprocessed baking) in place of shortening in pastry recipes. I never buy shortening and usually just replace it with butter, but I have a big tub of coconut oil, and so I was happy to try it.

The crust was easy to work with and absolutely delicious - flaky, buttery, a tiny bit sweet. You would never know that it had coconut oil in it, or that it was made with over 50% whole wheat flour.

Anyway, dinner was amazing. Hubby said he would be willing to eat it every night of the week. Here's what I did:

Whole wheat pasties
pasties adapted from Cook's Country, pie crust adapted from Bob's Red Mill

for the pasties
3 T unsalted butter
1 onion, diced
1/2 pound ground meat (we usually use pork, but only had turkey this time)
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground allspice
3 cups leftover pot roast or stew (meat, veggies, broth)

for the crust
1 c (4.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c (6.75 oz) whole wheat pastry flour
1 T sugar
1 tsp salt
7 T solid coconut oil
12 T unsalted butter
8 T ice water

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes until softened. Add the meat and spices and cook until the meat is no longer pink, about 8 minutes. Add the leftover pot roast or stew and cook until the liquid has evaporated, 5 - 10 minutes. Put the mixture in a medium bowl, mash it up, and set it aside to cool.

2. For the crust, put the flours, sugar, and salt into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times until mixed. Add the coconut oil and pulse a few times. Then add the unsalted butter and pulse about 8 times, until the mix is coarse, but you can still see chunks of butter. Dump the mix into a medium sized bowl.

3. Add the ice water, 2 tablespoons at a time, and press the dough together with a rubber spatula until the dough starts to hold together. You still want to have sandy parts falling off. Divide the dough into two equal portions, each on a piece of plastic wrap. Use the plastic wrap to fold the dough over on itself several times until it holds together. Then wrap each piece up and put it in the fridge to chill.

4. When ready to make the pasties, preheat the oven to 450, and put a silpat or a piece of parchment on a baking sheet.

5. Roll out the dough and cut it into pieces twice as big as you want your pasties to be. I make different sizes: big ones for the hubby, medium ones for me, and little ones for my little ones. :) Put a large scoop of filling in the middle of the dough (again, the size of the scoop will depend on the size of the crust -- experiment). Then paint the edges of the dough with water, fold the dough over, and use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges. Cut a few vent holes on the top of each.

6. Bake the pasties for 25 minutes. (You can also freeze the pasties on a tray before baking; wrap them in foil, and when you're ready to bake them, just take them out and throw them on a baking sheet. You may need to increase the baking time slightly.)

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: Everyone gets what they like best

Individual berry tart, with Dorie's pastry cream and NM's sweet tart dough, glaze made from strawberry-thyme jam; individual jelly jar parfaits with pastry cream, whipped cream, Dorie's cocoa crumbs, and varied berries depending on preference (inspired by Di)

Cream puffs!

When King Arther Flour posted about cream puffs and éclairs a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't believe how easy the recipe seemed. And I just knew I had to try it.

So one night when dinner wasn't that exciting, I decided to make a fun dessert. And just as promised, the recipe for the choux paste was incredibly easy. I heated the water, butter, and salt in a saucepan, then added the flour, and let it all cool. Then I mixed in the eggs. That's it. Just as easy as promised.

I decided to experiment with a couple of different sizes, making both 1/4 cup large puffs and cookie-scoop mini puffs. The large puffs baked exactly as stated in the recipe; for the minis, I baked them for about 10 minutes at 425º and then another 15 minutes at 350º. For the large puffs, I filled them with whipped cream and covered them with chocolate sauce. For the minis, I made a small batch of pastry cream and used a piping bag to fill them.

This recipe was so easy, and it created such a decadent and delicious dessert!

Bake! Danish apricot pinwheels

Finally!!! Our grocery store finally had apricots yesterday, so I was finally able to make Andrea's Bake! pick: Danish apricot pinwheels. I've never purchased fresh apricots before...or eaten them (I don't think), so I was really curious.

I still had a pound of quick Danish pastry dough in the freezer (from the Danish cheese pockets), so this recipe was actually pretty easy to put together.

For the filling, I mixed ground almonds, unsalted butter, sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest, vanilla, and flour.

Then it's assembly time: roll out the pastry dough, cut it into four-inch squares, and then form the pinwheels. Dollop a heaping teaspoon of the almond filling in the center, put half of a fresh apricot on top, and fold alternating corners of the pinwheels to the center. You're supposed to use a one-inch circle of dough in the center; I don't have one, so I used a mini-heart. It looked pretty cute! I was surprised by how easy the assembly actually was.

The pastries rest for a bit and then bake for 20 minutes. Then they're sprinkled with a healthy dose of powdered sugar before serving.

These were pretty yummy. The apricots were a little bitter, which contrasted nicely with the sweet from the sugar and the pastry crust. Are apricots always slightly bitter or were these just not ripe yet? I couldn't taste much of the almond filling; I had a bunch of it leftover, so I think next time, I'd up the filling until I'd used all of it. A fun breakfast treat!