TARDIS Pie, in brief, because holyhellthanksgivingisthursday

For starters, let me say that although the title of this post is "TARDIS Pie" it is no longer called that. As my brilliant beyond brilliant cousin Tom pointed out when I sent him a picture of this on Saturday night, it is, clearly, a TARTIS.

Get it? It's a TART. BUT ALSO A TARDIS.

TARTIS.

Seriously. Brilliant. I told him that I would patent it and give him a cut of the profits. It only seems fair.

AND SO. I PRESENT. FROM THE FARTHEST REACHES OF THE UNIVERSE.

TARTIS.

It's bigger on the inside. 

Now, because of time constraints (HOW many things have I got going on the stove right now? I've lost count. On the other hand, have I burnt myself yet today? No. Progress.)

TARTIS

FOR THE DOUGH

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp salt

FOR THE PIE/TART/TIME MACHINE CONTENTS

• 1 cup black olives, pitted
• 1/2 head of cauliflower, floret-ed
• 1 lb spinach 
• 1 small onion, chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• fresh rosemary

Make the dough first. Combine the ingredients in a small bowl and stir with a fork until it's starting to come together. Dump it out onto a floured surface and knead it until it's doughlike. 

THIS IS WHERE I HAVE A NOTE. 

My dough did not "come together" as they say. Or rather. It did. But it liked itself too much. What I'm trying to say here, dear reader, is that it became GLUE. I don't know if it was the olive oil or what, but I ended up adding about 2 more cups of whole wheat flour before I had something even remotely workable. I had envisioned a Tardis Pie much like the Witch Pie of Halloween, with the silhouette cut out of the crust and the crust stretching, golden and beautiful, from edge to edge. It became clear very rapidly that this was in no way going to happen. Not even close. Not only was it glue, it was FRAGILE GLUE. So when I finally got a relatively OK-sized circular piece and went to pick it up, it simply shredded in my fingers. 

I was sort of (read: fully) panicking at that point. The entire weekend hinged on Doctor Who and Tardis Pie, and if I didn't make this work I was going to end up in self-imposed culinary exile in the barn overnight. And it is SO COLD OUTSIDE. 

So. 

The bottom crust doesn't have to be pretty, bless it. It was fairly easy, though disheartening, to smash the dough into a roughly circular shape and then (literally) manhandle it into the pie dish and squish it around until it covered the bottom and edges. 

Not my best work. 

The TOP on the other hand. 

I approached the top crust with trepidation, and I had every reason to. It proved to be recalcitrant, intractable, and totally insane. A top crust just wasn't happening. At all. Ever. 

Desperate, now a full hour past my agenda-imposed time, and noticing that the Doctor Who reruns on in the background had taken a slightly mocking and hectoring tone, I realised the only possibility was a reverse crust pie. That is, not really a pie at all. An Open-Faced Pie. 

(I hadn't had the TARTIS conversation yet, so rather than revelatory this was just depressing.)

I forced the top crust into the largest disk I could without it self-destructing, then traced around the Tardis image with a knife. Then saying a prayer to ALL ELEVEN DOCTORS I slipped a spatula underneath it and, without breathing for I think was two full minutes, I transferred it to the top of the vegetable filling. 

It was desperate, scrappy, terrifying, and might have blown up in my face. But I went for it. And you know what? I'd like to think that's exactly what the Doctor would have done.

The filling is, by comparison, deliriuously, hysterically, wet-your-pants laughing easy. 

Heat the oil in the bottom of a dutch oven and add the onions, rosemary, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the onion is soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add the cauliflower and the olives and cook for about 5 minutes more until the cauliflower is beginning to turn tender. Add more olive oil if the pan becomes too dry. 

Add the spinach in handfuls, stirring well after each one and letting it cook down before you add the next batch. Spinach has the most remarkable ability reduce to a nano-fraction of its size, so no matter how much you are thinking "you want HOW MUCH in there????" it will happen. 

Pour the filling into your bottom crust (however ugly it may be) and spread it out.

Once you've painstakingly spatula-ed your dough Tardis on to the top, brush the exposed crust with olive oil  and bake at 450 degrees for about half an hour. The crust should be brown bordering on crusty brown when it's done. 

This was eaten, as planned, watching the 50th Anniversary Episode, and I must say that neither the television NOR the Tartis disappointed. What happened with the crust I don't know, but it ended up being like an olive oil biscuit. It was very crumbly and flaky, and had absorbed the flavours of the pie filling, so it was sort of like a spinachy, oniony, olivey biscuity-y thing. Which. 

So TARTIS may not have been as I envisioned, but it was not an unmitigated disaster, and the weekend was saved. Kind of like the Doctor saved . . . you know. . . everyone. Again. Because he's awesome. 

Sigh. 

Now dear reader, there are blue cheese thumbprints to be taken out of the oven, beans to check on, and shopping lists to update. But I will say that I'm on schedule at the moment, and have completed the Monday (blue) tasks and the Tuesday (purple) kitchen tasks, so I'm on schedule. 

For the record, tomorrow (Wednesday) is bright green. Thursday, natch, is gold. 

There's a lot of gold. 

Oh god there's so much gold.