The Great Unplanned Vegetable Pie

My roommates have done a terrible thing and left town.  Meanwhile, we’re getting ever further behind on vegetable consumption, even when there are three of us.  Last night I took drastic action.  My original plan was a pizza, because  making pizza dough sounded like fun.  So I mixed up some dough before leaving for work in the morning, then left in in the fridge to rise all day.

As the day progressed, my plans shifted.  It was CSA pickup day, and we still had half of the veggies from the week before.  I’d need to use more than could be scattered gracefully on a reasonable pizza.  So I decided to fake a deep dish pizza, so I could pile a bunch of veggies in, top them with tomato sauce (a donation from some jerk who moved away like a jerky jerk jerkwad) and cheese, and cover over any inadequacies with nostalgia.

I have no idea how one actually makes a deep dish pizza.  I decided to use a pie plate.  

I didn’t quite fit all the veggies I chopped into the plate.  I did get a lot of them in there, though, which was the point.  Also, giving the dough a few minutes to relax before stretching it over the pie plate would have been a good idea.  Fortunately, it relaxed while I stuffed veggies in, which rescued the whole  enterprise from utter disaster.

Topped it with tomato sauce.  From a jar.  Whatever, I was the only one eating it, and it was already approaching eight hours since lunch, so I wasn’t feeling picky.

Then I shredded a whole bunch of cheddar and piled it on.  Eyed the pie.  Added more cheddar.

I suppose this turned out more like a giant calzone than a deep dish pizza.  Oh well.  It was food, and it was full of veggies.

And it baked up quite nicely.It wasn’t the most exciting thing I’ve ever made.  Putting a cucumber in was a mistake – too much liquid, but that poured offf pretty easily.  I think taking the time to pre-cook some of the veggies (especially carmelizing the onion) would behoove a second attempt.  Also, mixing in the cheese more, and having even more of it.  But it was both adequately tasty and filling, and that was what mattered.