Sausage Pasty Meat Pie

A savory meat pie stuffed with seasoned pork sausage and vegetables.

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With Pi day (March 14, or 3.14) coming up, how about a meat pie? Meat pies make a wonderful dinner and a great leftover lunch. You can combine Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables with meat into a simple and satisfying vehicle for nourishment.

I did not grow up eating meat pies. My spouse did--in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where the pasty reigns supreme. Last summer we took the kids on a Lake Michigan Loop (up one side and down the other). We ate pasties in multiple places. Each was different (pasty sliders?!) and nearly all were amazing. [At one tourist place I had a merely 'good' pasty, but the brown gravy served alongside it was a new twist for me, so I considered that visit not a total loss.

This pasty uses pork sausage. It was inspired by my visit to the Runyan family of Oak View Farm Meats where I received a basket of pork products to play with at home, including the pound of pork sage sausage I used in this recipe, and loads of ideas on how to use them. You can take a virtual tour of Oak View Farm Meats with me here. I wanted to make a colorful filling to stand out from the paleness of the sausage, so I grabbed what I had handy--some potatoes from the basement Strategic Winter Squash Reserve--and a package of marked down chopped vegetables from the store. The key is to use finely chopped vegetables so that you have a cohesive filling.

I still buy pie crust in a box, so this could be called a Semi-Homemade Sausage Pie. I've made pie crust before, but it's not flaky like I want. Neither is the boxed pie crust, mind you, but I didn't slave over that so I'm not gonna stress about it. When I need my flaky pie crust fix I head to the farmer's market and get a Cheeky Meat Pie. The Indian-spiced vegetable one is amazing, such a treat since I like to eat out foods I can't make at home. I plan on extensive taste-testing before I figure out how to make a similar (and vegetarian!) filling in a family-size pasty.

For more pie recipes using farm share produce, check out my Beef & Bok Choy Pie,  Beef & Turnip Pot Pie, the vegetarian Savory Squash Pie, a sweet Peach Pie with Ginger Crumble Topping or a Strawberry Sundae Pie, and of course the original Pi Day post, Pasties, a Meat Pie for Pi Day. If you want something sweet and don't have any turnips or bok choy to use up (like me, right now, at the tail end of winter while I start eagerly anticipating the summer farm share season), how about an ice cream pie? I'll show you the basics in How To Make an Ice Cream Pie at Home. These recipes are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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Sausage Pasty Meat Pie (makes 2 large pies to serve 4 to 6 folks)

Ingredients

• 1 pound sage flavored pork sausage
• 1½ pounds finely chopped vegetables (Potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, red onion, and summer squash were in my mix. You'll definitely want potatoes & onion, play with the rest.)
• 1 box prepared pie crust, or enough dough for a double crust pie
• to serve, a couple pats of butter and a hunk of cheddar cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and a large skillet over medium high heat. 
2. Crumble sausage into skillet and cook 5 to 7 minutes until one side is browned. Stir.
3. Add the finely chopped vegetables to the skillet, reduce heat to medium, and cook another 5 to 10 minutes until the onions are softened. You're not going to get all of the vegetables fully cooked, and that's ok. Just get them started--they'll finish in the oven.
4. On a large piece of parchment paper, lay out each circle of dough. Place half of the filling on one side of circle, then fold the dough over the filling and crimp the edge. Repeat with the other half of the filling and the other circle of dough. Poke a couple of slits in the top of the dough.
5. Slide the parchment paper onto a rimmed baking sheet, or a cookie sheet if you're feeling lucky, and transfer to preheated oven.
6. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 30 minutes until crust is golden brown. You may need to cover loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes if you think it's getting too brown with too much time left on the timer.
7. Place a small pat of butter into the slits in the crust. It will melt into the filling in such a good way. Serve with a hunk of cheddar if you like--we do!