Like many people, I hate waste!
Last weekend I picked up a bunch of beautiful organic white turnips from the Farmer’s Market in Sale. The tops looked amazing, which got me to thinking about conversations I used to have with a friend I worked with. She told me how members of her family would collect greens for their cooking. Probably some of these greens we would call weeds. So I went in search of my Greek cook book and found a recipe for “Wild Greens Pie” or as I would call it “Weed Pie”. The recipe calls for a mixture of wild greens, including dandelion, mustard, chickweed, rocket, wild fennel, beetroot greens etc. I decided I would make something similar, but use the turnip tops, and some rainbow chard that I have in pots (my vegie patch is yet to be established). I should also have added some sorrel, but forgot I had it in another pot! In the fridge I had some of my homemade cheese just waiting for the right recipe, so instead of feta, I used that.
For the pie crust I used my Savoury Potato Pastry . I love this pastry, it’s gluten free and uses mashed potato. So whenever I have leftover mashed potato,I whip up a batch and freeze it, so generally always have a batch ready to whip and use. One day I had some leftover sweet potato mash and used that instead of normal potato. It was the perfect crust for an Indian style curry pie that I topped with slices of roasted cauliflower. I now have some blue potatoes – now that would make for an interesting crust colour! Anyway, I digress… This is the first time that I have actually used this pastry for a full pie, I generally only use it blind baked for savoury tarts and quiches. It worked perfectly, I was so happy, and now can’t wait to use it to make my Gran’s savoury mince slice. She would bake it and serve it cold, particularly for picnic type meals. It’s delicious, and guess what, it has white turnips in it.
So, my “Weed Pies” used up the turnip tops, which most of us generally toss away, left over cheese and left over mashed potato…
As I said, “Waste not, want not!
Until next time…
Bon appétit!