Rustic Creamy Country-Style Tofu Pot Pie

By Kathy PatalskyPublished 04/24/2017
This easy, rustic pot pie contains fluffy cubes of tofu and country veggies like corn, peas and carrots all wrapped in a super creamy cashew sauce and topped with a fluffy and buttery biscuit-style crust.


Ingredients

• Biscuit Crust:
• ½ cup (1 stick) vegan butter (Earth Balance), chopped into cubes
• 
1 cup oat flour (or substitute with all purpose flour)
• 
½ cup all purpose or whole wheat flour
• 
1 Tablespoon baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup + 1 Tablespoon warm water

• Filling:
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 medium sweet onion, chopped

• 1 package. House Foods Tofu, firm, diced into small cubes

• 16 oz. organic frozen veggies (carrots, corn, peas, green beans)

• 1 bay leaf, (optional)

• 1 teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 
⅛ teaspoon or less cayenne (optional)

• Creamy Cashew Filling:
• 1 ¼ cups raw cashews

• 1 ½ cups vegetable broth
• 
1 Tablespoon white miso paste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Crust prep: Add the vegan butter cubes, flour, baking powder and salt to a large mixing bowl. Using your hands, mash the flour and butter together into a thick, dry mixture. Keep blending until little flour balls begin to form. Add in the warm water and keep blending and starting to knead with your hands, in the bowl. This will take a few minutes for everything to break down and become dough-like. Make sure your water is warm enough so it warms the mixture a bit to make things easier.
3. When you have a ball of soft dough, set it aside in the bowl while you get to the filling. Note: If you would like to use a food processor or stand mixer to mix the dough, you can do that as well, I just like using my hands for this since this is really a quick biscuit-like top layer of dough for the pot pie. Using my hands keeps things simple.

4. Warm a large sauce pot over high heat. Add extra virgin olive oil, bay leaf and diced onion. Saute for 2 minutes, or until edges brown. Add the frozen veggies to the pot. Saute for 2 minutes, stirring well.
 Add the tofu, salt, pepper and cayenne to the pot. Stir well. Cover with lid and reduce heat to low.
5. While the tofu and veggies are softening a bit on low heat, blend up the sauce. 
Cashew Sauce: Add all the sauce ingredients to a high speed blender and blend from low to high for 2-3 minutes, until the sauce is silky smooth and very rich and creamy. Note: If you do not have a high speed blender you will need to soak your cashews in water overnight, drain and rinse before blending – this will soften them up. You could even do this if you do have a high speed blender, but just want a fluffier sauce. (Soaking cashews is not needed though, as I found.)

6. Remove the pot lid, remove the bay leaf and pour the creamy cashew sauce into the veggie tofu mixture. Stir very well. Put lid back on, and keep the temperature on low for a few minutes.

7. Grab your dough and roll it out on a floured surface, to about ¼ inch thickness. 

8. Pour the tofu and veggie mixture from the pot into a medium sized casserole dish (I used a 9” x 12” dish). Smooth out the mixture in the dish. Then carefully start adding your pot pie dough over top the mixture. You do not need one big piece, you can add it in bits, to make things easy and rustic. If desired, roll thin long pieces of the dough to create a “pie crust” around the edges of the dish. Using a fork, crimp the edges of the pot pie crust and poke holes all along the center.

9. Bake the pot pie for 35 minutes at 425 degrees, or until the crust is cooked through and starts to brown along the edges.

   Allow the pot pie to cool for 10-15 minutes before scooping and serving!


Yield: 1 pot piePrep Time: 00 hrs. 35 mins. Cook time: 00 hrs. 35 mins. Total time: 70 mins. Tags: pot pie,tofu,vegan,dinner,entree,creamy cashew pot pie,comfort food