Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Mystery Charlotte


Charlotte
Originally uploaded by suebobdavis.
I got this idea from a Julia Child and Jacques Pepin show I saw a long time ago. It just popped into my head "all of a suddenly," as an old friend used to say. It is kind of a modified pot pie. I called it "Mystery Charlotte" because you could put almost any filling inside.

The crust is made from pieces of bread brushed with melted butter and pieced together to line an ovenproof dish.The side pieces are tall rectangles. The bottom of the dish was lined with one piece of bread cut in a circle to fit. The top was more pieces of bread (crusts cut off) cut to cover the top evenly.

I remember on the show, Julia wanted to use a LOT of butter and Jacques kept saying "More butter??" in a very worried tone.

For the filling I sauteed garlic, diced yellow onions, sliced carrots, potatoes celery and mushrooms with a bit of my new Penzey's Spices chipotle chile powder, fresh thyme and sage, some poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. I also threw in about half a cup of frozen peas, a little water, and a little vegetarian soup base.

Then I loaded it all into the bread-lined dish (I used Trader Joes Whole Wheat Poppyseed bread), topped it with more pieces of bread, and baked the thing at 350 for about 25 minutes.

I had to cover it with foil after about 15 minutes to keep it from browning too much.

It turned out deliciously! The buttery crunchy crust was a contrast to the steaming veggie filling.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And did you butter the bread? That Julia incident is priceless and endearing, and Jacques' worried expression...!
I'm going to try this if I ever get an oven!
Lo

Suebob said...

Yes, I buttered the bread way too much...just like Julia! I gotta go with my homegirl.