A little help for my friend.

My friend Lana is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, and she has some vegetarian friends coming to her party. She asked me if I had any suggestions. In fact I was just thinking about that, since I have also invited a couple of vegetarian friends and I don't want them to feel left out. I'll be serving turkey of course and some kind of meat dish.. Meat is big in our family, you may have noticed! So I was thinking of a new way to prepare vegetables: I don't want to have a "side dish" type of vegetables, I need to offer something that my guests will feel equal to a turkey, if this is even possible. We need a main dish, an elaborate main dish, made of vegetables, something that says that the hostess took the trouble to cook something special for those guests, just as she did with the turkey. That was the key word: I need to make something within the same idea of the turkey. So, it should be something cooked in the oven, maybe while the turkey is cooking. What about a vegetable pot pie? It's vegetables, in a baking dish, with a nice pie crust. What a nice idea.

VEGETABLE POT PIE

Today we're are doing something a little unorthodox: I didn't cook the dish yet, but what I'm writing now is the blueprint for what I'll be serving next week. I'll post the picture later, maybe with more helpful tips. The main idea is to assemble a nice vegetarian dish, but as usual I don't want it to be heavy, or complicated. First we'll have to chose our veggies. I'll proceed by elimination: no broccoli. If they are overcooked they become soggy and they tend to give their flavor to whatever else is around them. The same goes for Brussels sprouts and cabbage. So, let's opt for safer veggies: potatoes, cauliflower, peas and carrots, beans, zucchini and maybe some pearl onions. Oh, and mushrooms, but let's keep it simple, white button mushrooms, no browns or special flavors. You'll need:

Assorted vegetables as indicated above: 1/2 bag frozen peas and carrots, frozen pearl onions and cut green beans, 1 or 2 zucchini, 1/2 head cauliflower, 2 to 3 small potatoes, mushrooms and/or some corn.

1 tbsp oil

1 or 2 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture or some thinly sliced scallions

Salt and pepper

1 pie crust or puff pastry sheet

2 tsp curry powder and/or garam masala

1 to 2 cups of grated Parmigiano

2 cups of skim milk (or regular milk if you like)

3 tbsp flour

Cut the cauliflower into bite size pieces, boil them half way in hot salted water. Boil the potatoes too and cut them in bite size. In a nonstick skillet heat the oil, cook the onion/garlic or the scallions until translucent, then add the mushrooms. Stir until they are almost done, adding some salt and pepper, then add the green beans, followed by the zucchini also cut in quarters. Don't let them cook completely. You may add the peas and carrots, the pearl onions and the corn at the end. Pour everything in a baking disk. In the same skillet, cook the milk where you'd have already dissolved the flour. Stir frequently until you get a beshamel sauce. Now you have the choice: either you go Italian, i.e. you add the cheese, or Indian, i.e. you add the curry powder to your sauce. Pour the sauce over the veggies. Mix. Cover the dish with the pie crust, or puff pastry, and with your knife make 2 or 3 slits on top to vent it. You may also brush the pastry with a beaten egg. Bake until the crust is golden brown.