COOKING ~ Mushroom Pie ~ (Inspired by the book "Postman Pat and the Frog Pie Dinner")

The finished MUSHROOM PIE

I've never eaten a Mushroom Pie before.  Oh, I've had sliced mushrooms as an ingredient in a quiche or a meat pie ~ but never the main ingredient of the filling.

And then we borrowed "Postman Pat and the Frog Pie Dinner" from inter-library loans (See separate "Book Review" post).

In the book, Pat's wife cooks a Mushroom Pie but they pretend it is a Frog Pie.  While the family are "in on the joke", their guest Peter Fogg is too scared to eat his serving.  That is, until he is told that it ISN'T Frog Pie.  "I love Mushroom Pie!," Peter excitedly exclaims.

There lies the inspiration for our latest cooking project.  Alisdair and I both wondered what a Mushroom Pie might taste like, so we decided to attempt to make one!

Unfortunately the picture book does not provide Pat's wife's recipe.  We don't know exactly what was in HER pie, but we finally found a recipe on the internet.  There were many to choose from -- some were vegan or vegetarian.  Others looked more like a quiche, in that they only had a bottom crust.

The recipe we eventually made was found at this website.  For ease of preparation we didn't make the crust recipe (as directed).  Instead, we used a purchased pie crust bottom and another packaged pastry dough for the top crust.  We have enough pastry leftover, in the freezer, to make another creation!

Frozen Crust

Washed mushrooms ~ ready to slice

Filling:

2 1/2 cups chopped onions
3 tablespoons butter
8 cups chopped mushrooms
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
Lots of fresh ground black pepper
8 ounces cream cheese

Directions:

Saute the onions in butter in a large skillet. When the onions are soft and translucent, add the mushrooms and thyme and saute for a few more minutes, until the mushrooms release their juices. Add the seasonings.

Onions, Mushrooms, Thyme, Salt and Pepper

Cut the cream cheese into small pieces and stir it into the mushrooms until it melts.

 

Bits of cream cheese



Cream cheese begins to melt into mushrooms.



Cream cheese first added to mushroom and onion mixture

Remove from the heat.  Fill pie crust with the mushroom mixture.

Empty prepared pie crust

Mushroom filling in unbaked crust.

Roll out the remaining dough about 1/4 inch thick (Thicker than normal pie crust) and cut into strips 1 inch wide.  Weave the strips into a lattice over the filling. Fold the ends of the lattice strips under the bottom crust, pinch the edges together, and flute.

Lattice in place and ready to bake in the oven.

Bake the pie for 25-35 minutes, until the crust is puffy and golden. (The recipe called for an egg and milk glaze but we were out of eggs, so we omitted that step.)

Care for a slice ... or two???

It was very rich and although we ate every last morsel, Alisdair and I both thought we wouldn't make it again unless we made some changes to the recipe.  It seemed like we would have liked it better if there was some ground beef added to the mushroom mixture as even one whole piece was too much to finish at one time.  It would probably have been better served with a salad or other side dishes instead of as a main meal in itself.

At any rate, we can now say we've made a mushroom pie!  Thanks, Postman Pat and friends for the inspiration!