Veggie Pot Pie, Take 1

A week or two ago I had a craving for a veggie pot pie but was unable to find the right recipe so I figured I'd try to make my own. Here's what I came up with:

Veggie Pot Pie

4 large potatoes
3 large carrots
1 cup of peas
1 recipe of white gravy (follows)
1 teaspoon of Italian seasonings
1 sheet of puff pastry

Cut the potatoes into small chunks and boil in water until fork tender. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the carrots into slices. Make up a batch of white gravy and add the potatoes, carrots, peas and Italian seasonings. Mix well so that the gravy coats everything evenly. Pour into a lasagna style dish and cover with puff pastry. Bake for about 30 minutes until puff pastry looks cooked. Serve warm.

White Gravy Recipe

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 cup milk

Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat. Blend in the flour, salt and pepper with a whisk. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in the milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for one minute.

Okay, so there were several problems with this recipe. First, do NOT use a lasagna dish - it's much too large and shallow, and the puff pastry has too much trouble covering it all. Second, the carrots really need to be cooked or softened before baking, they don't get soft enough in the oven. Third, there wasn't really enough gravy. Fourth, the puff pastry didn't get as golden as I had hoped it would. Fifth, it definitely needs more seasoning and finally sixth, it perhaps wasn't enough food for four people, two of which are guys with large appetites. So tonight, I made a second attempt at this recipe and the revisions and notes can be found under Veggie Pot Pie, Take 2. See you there!