Belgian Pie

This recipe actually comes from the diet and calorie count chapter, but I think it’s a good recipe for using up a load of potatoes and the last of the veg…

I only had 2lb of potatoes left so I decided to half this, plus 4lb does seem like an awful lot of potatoes! It doesn’t give an amount of veg so I just used what I had left, and that was carrots, peppers and spring onions! I was going to go buy some cauliflower at lunchtime but felt that defeated the purpose of making this!

Have to say one of my least favourite jobs in the kitchen in mashing potatoes, so there is definitely a good few lumps in my mash! I do like the whole adding the egg to mashed potato before baking, it really does make such a difference!

So I had to get my piping bags out for this, so it’s just as well I have loads of them in the house! If you don’t have any you can make one by folding greaseproof paper and then snipping the corner off.

I just kind of splodged on the middle but made an effort to pipe the edge. I was worried it was going to collapse as it is quite soft, but it held it’s shape ok

As you can see there are a few cracks so I was hoping it would hold ok in the oven. Once this was on I made a cheese sauce in the usual way and I just boiled the veg till softish.

I reckon the potato case was in the oven for about 20 minutes, by then it was a nice golden brown and hadn’t collapsed

I also opted to put some chopped parsley through the cheese and veg mix. I know my filling isn’t that exciting as it’s predominantly carrots, but I think most things coated in a cheese sauce are good!

Once filled I think this looks like a giant vol-au-vent!

We just had this with some salad in keeping with the diet control idea! It is quite soft but I still managed to cut up without totally collapsing! Even though I halved this it makes loads and was more than enough for the three of us for dinner, and that is a lot considering all we had with this was some salad leaves.

The potato is lovely and soft inside but with a nice crisp outside. The filling is good, I do love cheese sauce so maybe added a bit more cheese than a recipe would recommend but it’s really good! So it’s mainly carrots with a few spring onions and a pepper, but they are all just soft enough and coated in the lovely cheesy sauce!

Overall it’s a great dinner. It’s really filling and like I said its a good way to finish off the weeks veg. Am not sure what sort of diet it fits in with but I don’t care because I really enjoyed this, and even my daughter loved this and finished off every last drop off her portion.

Would I make this again? Yes, great filling dinner