A while back I picked up a package of ground pork at the grocers. As is typical of my shopping habits, I had no plan for it, but knew that I could do something with it, eventually.

Yesterday morning, while going through the freezer to see what I would fix for dinner, I grabbed it to thaw. I had no idea what I was going to make, but I had looked at in the freezer for too long. It was time.

It sat on the counter and I walked by it many times with no ideas formulating. And then all at once, it said Pork Pie.

A dinner was born!

I decided to just wing it with ingredients already in the house – sweet potatoes, onions, spinach, and apples. It worked well. Even Nonna ate a whole one all the while saying it was too much.

I used a standard 6-hole jumbo muffin tin and had enough dough and filling left over to make 2 more. I made a free-form pie with it for Victor’s lunch one day this week. Adjust ingredients, accordingly.

Pork Pie

  • Pie dough for 2-crust pie
  • 1 1/2 lbs ground pork
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 cups diced sweet potato
  • 1 cup diced apple
  • 2 cups frozen spinach
  • 2 eggs
  • 1-2 tsp rubbed sage
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Make your favorite pie crust and refrigerate. Mine is:

Pie Dough

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/3 cup cake flour
  • 1/2 lb butter, frozen
  • pinch salt
  • 3 tbsp ice water
  • 3 tbsp chilled vodka

Using a food processor, add flour and salt. Pulse to mix.

Chop up frozen butter and add. Pulse until butter is incorporated and mixture looks grainy.

Slowly add ice water and vodka. Pulse until mixed.

Turn out onto counter. Press and form mixture into 2 disks . Wrap in plastic and refrigerate about an hour to allow the flour to properly absorb the water and to relax the gluten.

For the filling:

Saute onion in a bit of olive oil until it begins to become translucent. Add diced sweet potato and apple and continue to cook until they just begin to soften. Remove from heat and add the frozen spinach. It will help quickly cool down the vegetables.

In a large bowl, mix the cooled vegetables with the raw ground pork. Add 2 eggs, the garlic powder, sage, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

Put it all together:

Roll half of the dough out to about an 8″ x 24″ rectangle – or any shape where you can get 3 good 7″-8″ circles of dough.

Butter the muffin tins and place a circle of dough in each one. Fill the dough cups with filling and fold the edges over the top.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 375° about 45 to 55 minutes, or until browned and cooked through.

They were surprisingly fun. A flaky crust and a savory filling were perfect for a cool day.

Methinks I may just have to get some more ground pork!