Saturday at the grocery store I bought a head of cauliflower. My first intentions when I brought it back to my place were to roast it and toss it with some toasted breadcrumbs and capers. But it was such a nice looking head of cauliflower, I decided to try something a bit more ambitious. In my freezer I had some scraps of pie dough and half a bag of peas. On my counter a tall stack of pot pie tins that I hadn't yet used. In my refrigerator some carrots and white cheddar cheese and milk. So I blanched the cauliflower and carrots. Made a bechamel. Finished it with some grated cheese, added the cauliflower, carrots, and peas, and used the mixture as filling in a couple of pot pies.
The result was very tasty. One pie I ate last night for dinner. The second, chilled, I photographed this morning. I think it is a decent looking pot pie, if not an absolute beauty. Next time though I will use a cheese with more color, since I find the filling looks a bit too light. As for the disposable aluminum pie tins, they work fine. The only drawback -- not insignificant -- is that they really don't promote much browning of the crust. Not a big deal, especially if one is eating the pie right out of the tin. But there is something very good looking, specially pleasing to witness, in the sight of a pot pie holding its own, standing tall, nothing to hide, full monty, no spray-on tan, unadorned golden crust strutting its stuff.
