Savory Pie

Today's lunch was a mish-mosh of items on hand that turned out pretty well. I started with several small Japanese eggplants from my garden (Now that the heat is abating, they seem to be recovering and bearing fruit. Hooray!) along with the last of the tomatoes (I think). To these I added half an onion and a bell pepper from the crisper. All of this was chopped and sauteed in olive oil until tender. While it was cooking, I tossed in some black pepper and garlic for good measure, and then some ginger balsamic vinegar mixed with a little flour for thickening. Finally, a couple of handfuls of feta cheese added a creamy saltiness to the pan. The result was a lovely blend of fresh vegetables ready for ... what?

I wasn't exactly sure. My first thought was to toss it with some pasta and stringy cheese, but we just had a similar dish a few nights ago. As I scanned the fridge for inspiration, my eyes came across a box of ready-made pie crust. Hmmm.... I decided two large "pies" would be unwieldy, so I cut the crusts in half, added the filling and sealed the edges with a little water and a fork. Next, all four pastries received a quick egg wash on top and a couple of slits to allow the steam to escape before they went into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. The result was a savory vegetable pie - somewhere between a pot pie (which has a good deal more sauce) and a stuffed sandwich (which is generally drier and cheesier). Even the boy liked this take on simmered veggies, so it must have been good.

As an added bonus, there was a fairly large bowl of left overs. I'm contemplating put the mixture through the food processor and eating it as a dip with crackers, which is one of my favorite ways to eat eggplant (along with frying, of course). Pureed dips are also easy to freeze, and judging by the number of baby fruits and blooms in my garden, I'm going to have quite a bit to use.