Now this my friends brings me back to my childhood.  I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts where every year at Christmas, there was a fantastic Christmas Light display at LaSalette shrine – my family would go every year, and as part of the fun we’d have a hot toddy, and perhaps a nice slice of French Meat Pie.  Also known as a Tourtière,  this is a dish popular in French Canada and is in fact a traditional part of the Christmas dinner in Quebec.  Of course, it’s also delicious on any other night of the year as well!  As my co-blogger and her husband can attest to, many families have their own traditional recipes (sometimes more than one per family even!) for this dish that are passed down generation to generation, however given my Irish-Italian heritage, we do not have our own recipe so I had to go finding one on my own.  I put it on my list of 30 things to make while I am 30 because it combines two of my favorite things – pie, and meat. 

This recipe I found is very easy (particularly if you use a premade crust – I won’t tell if you won’t!) and makes a wonderful meal to eat on a snowy New England night – which we’ve had enough of these days to know all to well!  I did substitute the spices a bit because I am not a big fan of allspice, and it came out fantastic – just as I remembered from when I was 7 or 8 wandering around looking at Christmas lights.  The light flaky crust with the warm spicy filling goes quite well with a glass of red wine, a movie, and a lovely night in watching frozen precipitation accumulate.  It also is quite filling – but reheats very well in case you are unable to finish it all on the first attempt.

French Meat Pie

adapted from TasteOfHome, via allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 cup mashed potatoes
• 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
• 1 egg, beaten

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.  Coat a large skillet with cooking spray and saute the onion until translucent.  Remove from skillet.  Brown ground pork and ground beef together in the same skillet.  Drain all the drippings.  Mix together the browned meat, onions, mashed potatoes, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper.   Line  a pie plate with one crust, and place filling inside.  Top with the second crust.  Crimp the edges of the crust together, and cut several small slits in the top crust to let steam escape.   Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the top crust appears golden brown.  Enjoy!

It’s been a wonderful weekend and I’m cooking up a storm. Stay tuned tomorrow for recipes for homemade artisan bread and pasta e fagioli!