2005-05-31 - 1:30 p.m.

If you're like me, you'd be happy eating pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But again, if you're like me, you probably want something savory. You can "enjoy" the "best of both worlds" with this traditional French-Canadian Meat Pie, even if you're vegetarian or vegan!

Start off by peeling and boiling a potato or two. Your goal is to have one cup of mashed potatoes, so a mediumish potato will probably do it, though it's best to overestimate - you can eat some potatoes while you're waiting for the pie to finish.

Anyway, while the potatoes are boiling, make a pie crust. I guess you can buy a frozen pie crust or something, but that takes away the fun of practicing for years to make a perfect crust. All I know is that you want to keep your fat (lard, butter, vegetable shortening) cool while you cut it into the flour, and my crust-making skillz improved dramatically when I got 1. A metal mixing bowl and 2. A dough blender.

Now, chop up a medium onion and sauté it with one pound of ground meat. If you're hardcore French-Canadian, you use pork or a mixture of pork and ground beef. My mom always used ground turkey, and I use textured vegetable soy crumbles. When the onion and meat are all cooked, add a teaspoon of allspice, a teaspoon of salt, and a half teaspoon of cinnamon. The potatoes are probably done cooking now, so drain them and mash them up with a fork (they don't have to be pulverized or anything). Add one cup of mashed potatoes to the meat & onion mixture and stir well. Then, pour the whole thing into the pie crust, put the top crust on, poke a couple of holes in the thing so the steam can escape and put it in the oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

If you have a little bit of crust left over, you can sprinkle on some cinnamon and sugar and bake it. My mom's family called this something I can say but can't spell in french which translates to "nun's farts". You should probably call them something else if you're giving them to someone without a sense of humor.

This pie is good hot or cold, and is complemented by applesauce and a nice green vegetable.