Harvest pie

Returning to Finland is always hard. But it's pretty hard to stay down for too long when you have colleagues as wonderful as mine. With gardens as wonderful as theirs. The fruits of which I get to harvest at my own desk!

I was so touched by the surprise I found on my desk that I couldn't wait to turn them into a pie to surprise my colleagues with. Which also gave me a chance to put one of those pie dishes I introduced to Facebook followers a little while ago to use. And can I just say I'm in love!

The base is the same as the one in that galette, only this time I substituted half of the flour with barley flour. For pie dish the size of mine (36 cm x 13 cm) you need 1,5 times the portion you need for galette.

Base:

3.75 dl flour
90 ml olive oil
2 tsp salt
90-120 ml water

Combine the ingredients for the base until you have a soft, elastic cough. Roll fairly thinly on a lightly floured surface slightly bigger than the pie dish you're using. Again, the easiest way is between two sheets of parchment. Transfer into the (loose-bottom) pie dish. The easiest way of doing this is to roll the dough around the rolling in and then unrolling it into the dish. Smooth the dough, fill any cracks with a piece of the dough and trim off excess. Let sit in the cold for half an hour and make the filling.

The best cream cheese for the filling is ricotta, as its fattiness gives it lovely, sturdy texture. If you can't find one though you can just as well use full-fat regular cream cheese. You could also substitute half (or more, if you really like it) of the cheese with goat cheese.

For herbs I used some mint and dill that were about to wilt to death, but other herbs (or a blend of them) works fine, too - chives, parsley and basil are equally good choices.

Filling:

200 g cream cheese

the zest of 1 lemon

a couple of tbsp herbs (mine was a combintaion of mint and dill)

salt, pepper

1 small onion or the green stalks of a spring onion

2 handfuls of green beans

100 g peas (roughly 1 dl)

1 zucchini

Trim the beans and parboil them in salted water for about 5 minutes. Drain. Mix the cheese with herbs, lemon zest and season.

Spoon the cheese mixture on the base. Spread finely sliced onions on top along with peas and beans. I decided to embrace my OCD and decided on the following layout. 

 

Slice the zucchini lengthwise into thin strips using a mandoline or a cheese grater. Or cut them into discs of about couple of millimetres thick. Lay the discs on top of the rest of the veg slightly overlapping each other OR using the strips for a lattice. The ends you can just stick into the cheese. Drizzle the lattice with the juice of half a lemon, brush with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle some good salt on top and and bake at 200° until the crust is cooked and the zucchini starts to get a bit colour - about 25-35 minutes.

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?