Carrot Zucchini Savory Pie

This is a damn pretty pie, if I may say so myself. But first, a couple of announcements:

Cait is the lucky winner of the Slimkicker Contest.  She had an awesome idea to challenge people to make all their own meals using whole food ingredients.  This challenge will be available for you to challenge yourself on http://www.slimkicker.com .  Way to go, Cait!

Second announcement: I’ve been working my but off on a big blog makeover!  I don’t want to promise a date, but I think I’m ready for the move to happen very soon!  I’ll be moving from http://www.wordpress.com to a self hosted site through http://www.wordpress.org.  My homepage will remain at http://www.cravingsgoneclean.com, so please follow me there!  If you subscribe, I think you’ll have to resubscribe through the new and improved site. Stay tuned!

Back to the pie. It’s also an excellent way to eat a lot of veggies in a fun way. It’s also amazingly easy, especially considering how gorgeous it looks! The crust packs some protein, and is a great texture. You might see this crust showing up again! It’s tasty, structurally sound without being too hard (all things I look for in a crust!)

Onto the recipe!

Crust Ingredients:

• 1/2 flour (I used spelt)
• 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 ground flax seeds
• 1 egg
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 t sea salt
• 1 t grainy mustard
• 1/4 cup milk (I used almond)
• healthy oil for greasing (I used coconut oil)

Filling Ingredients:

• 5 carrots
• 1 t mustard
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 1 T agave (or honey)
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1 egg
• 2 decent sized zucchini
• tomoto (optional, depends on how much surface area the zucchini cover

Optional Garnish:

• sundried tomatoes, minced
• green onions, chopped

How to:

1. preheat oven to 350
2. peel carrots and cut into 1″ chuncks, and steam carrots for 5 minutes. set aside.  Prep all other veggies while carrots are steaming.  Cut zucchini either in rounds or lengthwise, depending on desired look of pie (see photos for ideas).
3. in the food processor combine flour, flax and salt, and pulse to blend.  all all other ingredients, and blend until it forms into a big ball of dough
4. grease your pie plate/quiche dish, and press the dough into bottom and sides, until it’s evenly covered. make a few holes with a fork
5. bake crust for 6 minutes
   While crust is baking:
6. in the food processor, blend steamed carrots, and all other filling ingredients EXCEPT for the zucchini
7. when the crust is ready, spread the carrot filling into the crust, and spread with a spatual
8. now you get to decorate!  Place the zucchini standing up in the carrot mixture, working around in a circle, from the outside to the center.
9. bake at 350 for 30 minutes, then turn oven down to 325 and bake an additional 20 minutes
10. Enjoy!

I’ve made this twice, and cut the zucchini into discs the first time, and cut it lengthwise the second time. 

That first time I ran out of zucchini for the center, so I compensated by filling the void with a nice tomato slice.

I can’t decide which look I like better! Here’s what the slices look like:

While style of zucchini presentation do you prefer?