A big thanks to the wonderful and sweet Deb at Kahakai Kitchen for chosing this vegetable pot pie for Barefoot Bloggers! First I have to apologize for the pictures, I know, they are sad. This was not the prettiest pot pie I've ever made, sorry. But I really had a fun time with this recipe, the veggie prep was a lot of work, once again with the peeling of the butternut squash, peeling the potatoes, peeling carrots, etc. I changed around the veggies a bit and did not use asparagus but used peas and left out the onions. I love asparagus, and I have some that I bought for this recipe, but for some reason I decided to go with peas instead, maybe hoping that the kids would go for this since they love peas.
I was nervous about the fennel, I've never cooked with fennel before and by the looks of it was a little scared it may be onionish. Thank goodness it was not! I had a piece raw, and the texture reminded me of a cross between a potato and celery, of course the flavor was licorice which was wonderful! I'm not a huge gotta have it licorice fan (like my mom and husband, who search out and eat all the black jelly beans before you can say Easter basket) but I do like licorice, so I did enjoy the fennel. I am excited about having a new veggie to cook with and look for in recipes! I had always shyed away from fennel, but not anymore!
The saffron added a nice little something extra to this dish, I bet the Pernod did too, but I couldn't find it anywhere so left it out. Now I'm interested to find some just to try it. This recipe was really easy except for all of the prep work. I only used 4 tablespoons of butter to sautee the fennel in, 1 1/2 sticks just sounded way too over the top even for someone who is a butter fan. I did notice a bit of a floury taste so would decrease the flour if I made this again, but maybe that was my fault for not using all the butter. Oh-well. Sorry to say the kids weren't too keen on this. My one year old liked it, but my older two were not impressed. They did have fun making cookie cutouts of the pie crust scraps :)
Speaking of the crust I really liked it, it came together so easily in the food processor and was a sinch to roll out. I do not have a 'go to' pie crust but have been using Dorie's "good for almost anything pie crust" lately, but think this one is easier to work with.
Here is the link if you would like to try this wonderful fall dish Ina's Vegetable Pot Pie.
