Beef & Vegetable Pies

Well it's still footy finals time and hubby has once again requested some "dude food".  I went through our deep freeze and found some osso bucco in there which I thought would be a great cut to slow cook some pie filling.  There's something pretty satisfying about making your own pies!  Hope you enjoy this recipe. 

Ingredients (makes 6):
(You will need 6 pie pans or you could use a Texas muffin pan)
- 800g of beef suitable for slow cooking (I used about 1.5kg of grassfed osso bucco and took out the bones after the filling was cooked)
- 1 cup homemade chicken stock OR 1 cup Campbell's liquid veggie stock OR 1 cup water + 1tbsp Thermomix veggie stock concentrate
- 2 cups water
- 400g can diced tomatoes (or fresh)
- 100g sliced mushrooms
- 1/2 carrot, diced
- 1/2 zucchini, diced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- Optional - 1/2 chipotle chilli, sliced (this adds a lovely smokey flavour)
- Sea salt, pepper and Herbamare to taste
- Pampas butter puff pastry sheets (I used 4 sheets, having to do some patchwork to create the lids to 2 of the pies!)

Method:
1.  Combine in a slow cooker (or casserole dish, though if doing this then preheat your oven to 150 degrees) all the ingrediens (except puff pastry of course!) and cook on low setting for 6 hours, stirring every now and then.  Or if using oven, cook for 3 hours, stirring every now and then.

2.  Allow the meat mixture to cool right down.

3.  Preheat oven to 200 degrees and grease your pie pans.

4.  Line the base of each pie pan (to do this, I used 3 pastry sheets, cutting each one diagonally in half and then trimming off any excess pastry).  Fill each pan with the filling, ensuring you don't put in too much liquid.  Seal each pie with a pastry lid (I cut the remaining pastry sheet into 4 squares and then for the remaining 2 lids, I patched together the excess pastry leftover from lining the bases), trim off excess pastry.  I also used a fork to press right around the edges of each pie to seal.  Then I also used the fork to prick a couple of vents in the top of each pie.

5.  Pop the pies into baking trays and bake for around 20 minutes or until the pastry looks nice and golden on top.  We served these pies with organic tomato sauce and salad on the side.