Love meat pie, but hate animal cruelty?

Well, hey!

Check this recipe out!

Want an imposing holiday table?

Add this baby to your spread.

If you’re a New Englander, or French Canadian [or both, plus, like moi, you had a grandmother from northern France], then make yourself some damn tourtière. I grew up knowing it as pork pie. I also grew up knowing a chopped nut pie as mince meat…which, as a cotton brained child, I didn’t quite grasp the concept of calling something something other than what it was. Flash forward…I still question use of metaphors over functional language.

Whatever, I suppose.

Worth a mention- some consider tourtière to be an acquired taste cos of the spices used.  But, just so ya know, this ain’t dessert like. No shape, way, or form.

My two French grandmothers would whip these out of their meme ovens during the holidays like hummingbirds visiting feeders. Everyone would scarf them down with a ruby red dollop of ketchup. [except, apparently, my Uncle Brian…the outlier who not only doesn’t like tourtière, also doesn’t eat ketchup]

This is a ‘best served warm’ kinda dish, cos burning your face off is something y’all will want to opt out of. [… the pie should add the drama…not your goddamn scorched lip.] Best warm is another pie perk; you can cook this the day before, & stick it in the fridge. Super duper easy.

Now, as a vegan or as a person who gives a shit, you got tons of options for the filling. Those that choose to fund animal cruelty have only one option: corpse parts of pigs & bovine.

For this particular tourtière, I used match brand pork, & beef.

If you can’t get your grubby mitts on Match, you could substitute with any of the many other vegan brands;

Gardein, light life, beyond meat, Tofurky, field roast, Yves, no evil, neat, uptons, loma Linda, May-wah….etc

Maybe you don’t dig vegan meats? Okie doke…you could use;

Jackfruit, tofu, nuts, oats, garbanzo beans, etc

Maybe you do dig vegan meats, but can’t find any at your local grocery?

From scratch seitan is the way you got to go!

Guess what? Here’s a friggin recipe—-> https://digoutyoursoul.blog/2016/10/16/wheat-meat/

Thing with this is, you want some dang texture inside all of the warm spices.

The end result is gonna be hearty savory deliciousness.

Prep stuff…

Like preheat your oven to 350…how in the hell are ya gonna bake this thing otherwise?

Chop your onion, mince your garlic, boil-n-mash your taters, defrost/make zee pie crust…

Get your spices ready. *You should probably have a rudimentary grasp on spices, but, if not, just pants it. Add a little, and taste, add more, and taste. You do what you gotta do in order to make stuff appeal to you. Cos no matter what the flavor profile of a recipe says, you wield the power. I, personally, love richness of flavor, & I really think seeing the spices is groovy…but, hey, that’s me. *Yo- you can always add spice, but you can’t take spice away. #wordsofwisdom

Now, take whichever vegan meat[s] you decided on, add it to a hot pan with the onion and garlic. [add water a little bit at a time if you need to, cooking until veg is translucent.

*Yo- vegan stock is another yum option

Add your blend of spice along with salt and pepper to taste.

Grab a fork and stab the bottom crust like a homicidal maniac whilst maintaining some semblance of control.

When the vegan meat filling is browned, turn off the heat and add in the naked mashed taters. Stir until everything is combined.

Dump the filling into the bottom crust. Now, you have some density options here;

You can press the filling down with the back of your spoon, or, you can just spoon it in and let it do it thang under the top crust. I pressed this time. I was in a pressing mood today.

Pop the top crust on, make some slits to vent, & voila; unbaked tourtière!

Stick it in the oven, & bake that shit for around a half hour. Crust should be golden. But, if you like a darker crust…go a bit longer. Ain’t no crust color police gonna bust down your door.

Once baked….at least let it cool for around 10 minutes.

Seriously…

Have patience, tourtière grasshopper….[eh?]