vegan taco pie (recipe)

 

In Sweden the classic Friday dinner since a couple of decades (?) is concidered to be tacos. I’m not a great fan of tacos though, so it’s a very rare (practically non-existing really) meal for me. However. This savoury vegan taco flavoured pie I’ve been meaning to make for ages, original recipe in Swedish here - https://planti.se/recept/tacopaj

First I searched in vain for the Planti dairyfree cooking fraiche paprika chili in grocery stores for a long time. When I finally stumbled over them I still didn’t got around to making it because I’ve always found making pie crust is such a time consuming bore. And it felt like a million years since I last made a savoury pie, I’m not a huge fan of those either. Or perhaps I just connect them to non-vegan pies with an unsavoury amount of dairy, eggs and cheese and that notion in itself is just so off-putting. Who knows how the mind works. (Especially after two years of corona isolation…)

When I finally did make it I was practically blown away by how utterly delicious, moreish and fabulous it was. And I have made it regularly ever since. The pie crust thing isn’t as daunting anymore. And besides, it isn’t suppose to be a flawless looking piece of pie, just appetizing, rustic and inviting.

So if you love taco and pie this is the best of both worlds, a hearty plantbased pie and classic taco taste. This vegan taco pie takes Friday coziness (aka Fredagsmys which is a very Swedish concept, like Fika) to new heights.

VEGAN TACO PIE

4-6 servings

The crust
3 dl wheat flour
125 g refrigerator dairyfree butter
3-4 tablespoons ice cold water

The filling
2 yellow onions, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
500 g vegan mince
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
4 dl Planti vegan Cooking Fraiche Paprika Chili (not sure what’s available in your grocery store if outside Sweden, but I’m sure you can find the equivalent)
1 red pepper, finely chopped
2 dl corn kernels
salt
black pepper

Decoration
1 box of cherry or plum tomatoes

How to make it - 

Pie dough:

Pinch together butter and flour. Add the water and mix quickly to a dough. Roll out and dress a pie tin with it. Dot the bottom with a fork. Myself I just put the ingredients in a mixer and let it do the work. Also I never roll pie doughs, I just dress the pie tin with pieces of dough evenly.

Set the oven to 225 C degrees.
Let the pie dough rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.
Pre-bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Taco filling:
Fry the yellow onion and garlic in a little rapeseed oil until it softens. Turn the soy (or whatever vegan mince you have) mince over and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Season with cumin and coriander. Stir in flavoured cooking fraiche, paprika and corn. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the minced meat filling into the pre-baked pie crust and press it down lightly. Decorate with the tomatoes on top of the pie and bake everything at 200 C degrees for about 40-50 minutes.
Serve with a simple salad.

And above all, enjoy!

in a world gone crazier than ever, hello march 2022

 

As if the neverending pandemic was not enough, now there’s a little megalomaniac with inferiority complex and delusions of grandeur deckaring war on a sovereign neighbouring country. And a frightening new  IPPC report on top of that. There are truly so many layers of human induced madness here and now that it’s impossible to grasp it’s actually happening.

Remember how wonderful 2022 was suppose to be, how life would magically begin to make sense again?

With all this craziness, the tensions, the stress in the big scheme of things, the crazy, tense and stressful things in my own life seems… somewhat petty and minor. Even if they certainly do not feel that to me.

But I just don’t have the energy or inclination to let all that flow freely in blog as things are now. 

Let’s acknowledge that it’s once again Fat Tuesday - Shrove Tuesday - Fettisdagen in Sweden, and you’re suppose to overindulged in semla/semlor (sing./plur.). I haven’t had one alas. But I did enjoy a good one yesterday. Vegan of course.

So I’m fine without one on The Day. Really.

And I’m not going to make one of my usual compilation of the month that was. Just settle with the fact that it had both pretty good and promising stuff going on and an overall sense of momentum and new beginnings in the crisp Scandinavian winter air, as well as deeply troubling issues, ridiculous issues that really shouldn’t be at all. But they are. And I have to deal with them too. And once again for the umpteenth time Trust. The. Process. That everything will be alright. 

If not the wicked little mad man in the east goes even crazier of course. But that is something that is truly out of my hands.

But what wasn’t out of my hands yesterday was the scissors. I’ve been contemplating another chop off my hair project for a while now. Also a lesson from the life in the time of corona is the fact that hair grows so fast (as do the nails from all the handwashing and water…) and cutting it shorter always gives a sense of liberation, new beginnings and everything is possible!

And seeing how truly limp, brittle and tired it looked yesterday, well I decisively just put the scissors to work when I got home and off came a rather long bit of my hair, more than planned but there you are. New month, new hair and once again I did it myself. And it looks pretty decent, again. If I may say so. It will reveal its true self and its intentions for the future after the next hair wash and styling products, of that I’m sure.

Apart from working, reading, meditating, bettering myself, battling with stupid matters, enjoying vegan cooking and being very good at not wasting food (one of my intentions and goals for 2022) I’m also obsessed with the German series Dark on Netflix https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5753856/ it’s really extraordinary (as is Babylon Berlin if you want more German top notch TV, but I think I wrote about that one a few years back?). 

Shall we leave things from the world according to me for now then? Okay. And then just firmly cross every finger, toe and paw for a peaceful, enlightened and progressive solution to the current state of the world affairs. Be kind, just be kind, please.

Thank you February, for lessons, syncronicity and new beginnings.

Welcome March, it is about high time to get this lovely party of hopes and dreams, sprinkles of magic and oodles of benevolence started! Can you hear the joyful music playing? Because I can, yes I can.