recipe: meat + veggie pie for fussy eaters

I have some news you may not want to hear. 

Being committed to wholefood living, cooking from scratch and presenting your children with wholesome, delicious food...does not guarantee they are going to eat it!! 

My youngest, Sol, is five and is currently giving it his best shot at being a fussy eater. Problem for him is, his dad and I doing our darndest not to let him be! (There could be a lot of exclamation marks used in this post!)

While I'm all for presenting veggies in their whole form to kids, when it gets to the point that they just look at them, tell you they don't like them and go to bed hungry, no one is winning.

So last night I got out the trusty grater and returned to the age old tactic of grating as many veggies as I could into a dish every child will eat: pie.

Sol ate two serves of the pie with sweet potato/potato mash on the side. Little did he know he also ate carrot, zucchini, onion and mushrooms plus some other nutritional goodies that you'll see in the recipe.

I took a shortcut and bought the pastry.

Meat and Veggie pie

Ingredients

500g beef mince

1 medium brown onion, finely grated

1 medium carrot, finely grated

1 medium zucchini, finely grated

6-8 button mushrooms, finely grated

1 clove crushed garlic

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes

1 dessertspoon Superfoods for Kidz Vital Veggie Powder

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 tablespoon cold water

2 tablespoons Bragg's All Purpose Seasoning (you could use a splash of tamari)

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 cup beef stock or water if you don't have stock available

1 quantity puff pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten

To make

Heat olive oil in heavy based pan over medium heat and add onion, carrot, zucchini and mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes then add the garlic and meat, cook until brown.

In a cup mix cornflour and water to a paste.

Add the stock or water to the meat and veg. then add the cornflour mix, tomato paste and Bragg's.

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for 8-10 minutes until the sauce thickens. Put aside to cool.

Heat oven to 220 degrees celsius. Cut pastry: allow 2/3 of the sheet for the base and 1/3 for the lid.

Sprinkle flour on your work surface and roll out the base. Line your pie tin with the pastry.

Fill the pastry case with the meat and veg sauce. Cover the pie with the lid. If you find the lid is a bit small like I did! You can fold the edge of the base in and crimp the lid and base together with your fingers. Make a snip in the centre of the pastry to let the steam escape or make a few holes by gently stabbing a fork here and there in the lid.

Brush the lid with the beaten egg and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden.

Serve with mash potato/sweet potato and if you're feeling really brave some broccoli too lol.

I hope your family enjoys this as much as mine did.

Happy cooking x