On New Years Day I have a tradition of making a pie out of vegetables that need using up before I re-stock with fresh ones.  This year I had plenty of potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and peas left over, and so I thought of this dish - "Peas of Earth" for my New Year on a Platter entry!  I would have thought all the ingredients I've used will be easy to obtain most places in the world, at any time (they certainly are here in Ireland anyway).  This is also a very easy meal to prepare - even easier if you want to use ready-made pastry, though I don't use it myself due to preservatives used in ready-made, and you never know the quality of the ingredients they put in.  I figure there's no point preparing a lovely tasting meal unless it's super nutritious too.  So I wish everyone a Happy Nutritious Year.  Ha ha.

What you will need:

6oz wholewheat flour

3oz butter

2 tblsp water

4 medium potatoes

2 small sweet potatoes

1 red onion

6 cloves garlic

400g frozen peas

1 jar tomato passata

2 tblsp honey

1 tblsp black pepper

1 tblsp oregano

1 tblsp thyme

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

1/2 cup water

Method:

Put the flour into a large bowl and add the butter (cut into small pieces). 

Using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add the water to form a dough (try not to over-handle as this makes the pastry crumble).

Using a rolling pin, roll the pastry out to about 0.3cm thick, and use a gingerbread-man cutter to cut out 9 shapes.

Place the cut-out shapes, along with 3 bits of pastry rolled into long strips (for the 'peace' symbol) onto a lightly floured baking tray, and pop into a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes until firm.  Set aside to cool.

Peel, wash and slice your vegetables ready for layering in the pie dish.  Finely chop the garlic and set aside for the sauce.

Layer the vegetables in the pie dish, any order you like.  I did potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion, peas, and repeated until the dish is almost full.

Empty the jar of tomato passata into a jug and add the garlic, honey, pepper, herbs, mustard and water, and stir well.

Pour this evenly over the top of the vegetables.  It will trickle down through the layers and help the veg to soften nicely as well as making it tasty!

Sprinkle a final layer of peas on the top, and then cover the dish with foil.

Pop into a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes until cooked through and piping hot.  

Arrange the strips of rolled pastry into the 'peace' symbol, and place the pastry figures around the edge to look like they're holding hands in unity :-)

Many thanks to @englishtchrivy for hosting this challenge, thanks to the judge @richman, and to the sponsors  - @smooth, @sirwinchester and @knozaki2015. 

If you enjoyed my post please follow me for more healthy and tasty (vegetarian) recipes!

Thank you, and happy new year to you all!

Logo kindly created for me by @papa-pepper