Spring is Sprung Savory Pie

I love pie.  The traditional fruit pies, the pumpkin pie, and especially savory pie.  You can pack so many great ingredients into a pie and it becomes a quintessential one "dish" meal.  The pie I am making for dinner tonight began it's life as a Summer Vegetable and Herb Quiche, and I have even adapted it to be a cozy winter vegetable pie for dinner's past.  But today, with 60 degrees teasing us into warm spring thoughts, I thought we could create a taste of spring and add fresh carrots and pencil asparagus.

So here is the recipe for this cheery spring treat.

Spring is Sprung Savory Pie

Serves 4-6

4TB of Olive Oil
12 oz. of thawed puff pastry
1 ripe tomato
2 whole carrots cut into thin rounds
1 bunch pencil thin asparagus
9 oz of cottage cheese
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp. dill
1 tsp. lemon pepper
1/2 tsp. herbs de provence seasoning
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

Cut the hard ends off of the asparagus, cut the asparagus into three sections.  Put a shallow pan on the stove with about two to three inches of salted water in it and bring it to a boil.  Put the sections of asparagus in the water starting with the lowest section first, boil 1 min, then the middle section and boil 3 minutes and then the top section and boil for 2 to 3 minutes.  Taste the asparagus to test for doneness.  Bottom section should be tender but with a bit of crunch left.  Remove asparagus from boiling water into a bowl full of ice water to stop boiling and maintain green color.  Set aside.

Dump the water from your pan, drizzle it with the olive oil and place on heat with carrots in it.  Saute carrots until they are tender to your liking.  About 10 minutes. Remove carrots from heat and set aside.

Open up the puff pastry and shape it into a glass or ceramic pie plate as a bottom crust and set aside.

Combine almost all of the parm cheese and all of the cottage cheese in a food processor, add the dill and 1/2 of the lemon pepper.  I also added some tops of asparagus.  Pulse the cheeses and spices and veggies until combined.

Scoop the carrots onto the crust in the pie plate.  Pile the asparagus on top of the carrots.  Sprinkle with a little bit of salt and pepper.  Spoon the cheese mixture over the vegetables.

Slice the tomato very thinly and place a whole slice in middle of the pie mixture and halves arranged around the whole.  Use remaining dill, some salt and both peppers (just little shakes) on top of tomatoes.  Finally, sprinkle the Herbs de Provence over the whole thing.

Place in the oven for approximately 40 minutes but start checking in about 20 minutes to see if the pastry around edges and the cheese is bubbling and golden.  Take it out and enjoy!