Potato, Spinach and Sweetcorn Chowder Pie: A recipe revisited

To continue the theme of this first birthday month I have got another “Fix that dish” post where I have taken a recipe from my early blogging days which I felt could be improved and I have re-made it using my new knowledge and food ideals. Last week I freshened up my Quesadillas recipe and this week I have decided to look at my Spinach and Potato pies , a recipe which me and Scott both enjoyed but I just never felt it lived up to the creamy potato pie I was trying to create.

30th September 2011

6th August 2012

In my first recipe I layered a ‘creamy’ vegetable sauce in between very thinly sliced potatoes and topped it with filo pastry, I knew I wanted to keep the filo pastry lid because it made it a proper pie and I like the crunchy pastry contrasting with the filling. This time I began by thinking about what sort of potato dishes I had cooked in the past which I enjoyed and I remembered a summer many years ago when I went through a phase of cooking potato and sweet corn chowder every day for my lunch, I couldn’t get enough! If I could bulk this up and add some more vegetables this would be a great pie filling…and it was! 🙂

Chowder Pie Filling

I used pretty much the same ingredients as before except I swapped the vegetable stock for soya milk. If you’d rather have a less creamy pie then using vegetable stock will work fine. Using soya milk and extra light Philadelphia cream cheese makes these little pies under 300 calories (based on my fitness pal calculations) which means they are perfect as a treat.

Serves 4

2 Onions – chopped
1 Large Carrot – sliced
1 Leek – sliced
2 Medium sized Baking potatoes – peeled and diced
2 Garlic cloves – crushed
2 tspn Dried Thyme
300ml Soya Milk
3 tblspn Extra Light Philadelphia
2 tspn Wholegrain Mustard
200ml Water
1 tblspn Plain Flour
1 Handful Spinach
3 tblspn Sweetcorn
2 Filo Pastry Sheets

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Saute the onion, carrot, leek, potatoes and garlic in a pan for 5-6 minutes untill the veg has all began to soften. Then add the thyme and some salt and pepper.

In a jug mix the soya milk, cream cheese, mustard and 200ml water and mix well untill combined.

Add the flour to the vegetables in the pan and stir, then add the milk mixture, sweetcorn and spinach. Cover the pan with a lid or foil and simmer on a medium heat for 10 minutes or until the potato is soft. Pour the vegetable mix into 4 individual sized pie dishes.

Cut the filo pastry sheets in half and place one half on top of each pie dish, scrunch the pastry slightly to get good texture, also it looks prettier!

Cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling hot. Serve with greens such as broccoli or peas.

Crispy pastry and a creamy chowder filling