Oh the vegetarian meals I make my husband eat...

Every Saturday one of my favorite things to do is sit down with a cup of coffee and plan out our meals for the week.  I normally spend at least an hour on my favorite food websites looking for recipes that might be fun to try.  This past week I found a recipe on vegetariantimes.com for a chickpea pot pie.  More than the draw of chickpeas (who doesn't love a chickpea?) I was intrigued by the fact that this recipe included egg noodles in the vegetable creamy portion of the dish.  I had been about 1/3 of a bag of egg noodles left from a previous recipe so I thought I might as well use them on something delicious like a pot pie.

As a head's up, I made multiple substitutions during my experiment with this recipe because (1) I am cheap and didn't want to buy more spices and/or multiple cans of vegetables and (2) I actually forgot to buy the ingredient while at the store.  I will include all my substitutions after the recipe and directions. 

Below is what the recipe I began with from the Vegetarian Times (vegetariantimes.com/recipe/chickpea-pot-pie/) website:

Chickpea Pot Pie

2 tablespoons grape seed oil

1 medium onion, diced (1.5 cups)

2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)

3 celery ribs, chopped (1 cup)

3 medium carrots, diced (1 cup)

6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth, divided

2 cups frozen corn kernels

1 15oz can of chickpeas

2 tablespoons of parsley

1 tablespoon of rubbed sage

1 tablespoon dried marjoram

2 bay leaves

1 16oz package of egg noodles

2 tablespoons of cornstarch

2 tablespoons of whole-wheat flour

4 oz. reduced-fat cream cheese

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 cups frozen peas

2 cups frozen green beans

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

1. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, and cook 15 minutes, or until onion browns. Stir in garlic, then celery and carrots; sauté 5 minutes.

2. Stir in 5 cups broth, corn, chickpeas, parsley, sage, marjoram, and bay leaves; season with salt and pepper, if desired. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 30 minutes. Stir in noodles, and cook 5 minutes, or until noodles are tender. Remove bay leaves.

3. Whisk together cornstarch, flour, and remaining 1 cup broth. Stir cornstarch mixture, cream cheese, and Parmesan into vegetable mixture. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Remove from heat, and cool. Stir in peas and green beans.

4. Preheat oven to 375°F. Place puff pastry on top of vegetable mixture in Dutch oven, tucking in sides. Or, to make individual pot pies, divide vegetable mixture among 12 small pie dishes. Roll out puff pastry sheet into large square, and cut into 12 small squares. Drape each square over filling, tucking in sides. Pierce top or tops in several places with knife to allow steam to escape. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until crust is flaky and brown.

Here is the list of substitutions I made while cooking this scrumptious dinner:

1) I forgot to buy an onion while at the farmer's market so that ingredient immediately flew out the window.  I just added an extra teaspoon of garlic to help with the flavor.  

2) I didn't want to buy multiple cans of vegetables so instead I just bought a medium sized frozen bag of mixed vegetables.  The bag included corn, carrots, lima beans, green beans, and peas!  What are the chances it would have every vegetable I was needing plus lima beans?

3) Instead of adding the peas and green beans at the end of the cooking time, I just added the entire bag of frozen mixed vegetables when the directions say to add the corn and chickpeas.  

4) I only had about 4.5 cups of chicken broth so after adding that amount to the recipes, I just salted some water and used that as a substitute.

5) I did not have any sage or marjoram so I made switched those two spices out as well.  I used oregano in place of the marjoram and a basil/salt/parsley spice in place of the sage. 

6) I only had about 1/3 of a bag of egg noodles and that was perfect.  If I would have had more than that the recipe would have been too egg noodley.

7) I used a pie crust instead of puff pastry.  If we are all honest with ourselves, we know a pie crust is so much better than a puff pastry.  Why go for the second best?

And here is how it turned out!

Overall, I thought it was a delicious recipe!  Matt said he would give it a 3 out of 5 chicken wings.  (Other people rate things by stars, my creative husband rates things by the number of chicken wings he would given them.)  He didn't really love the egg noodles in the vegetable mixture.  I loved it because the recipe can be made entirely in one Dutch oven.  There was so little clean up that my mind was literally blown!  I was having a hard time imagining that such a hearty meal could just produce about five items to wash afterwards.  I would definitely consider that a blessing and perk in making this meal again.

PS- I am still working on the whole photography piece of this blog so please forgive my poor lighting.  Everything isn't as yellow as it appears.  Imagine that it actually looks like the flaky, golden brown crust mentioned in the directions instead of strange tan-colored one.