Winter veggie pasties

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 brown onion, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 stick celery, diced
• 3 rashes bacon, trimmed and chopped into small pieces
• 1 tbsp thyme leaves
• 1 potato, peeled and diced
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 4 sheets frozen shortcrust pastry
• 1 egg, beaten

Method

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium. Cook the onion, carrot and celery for five minutes or until soft, stirring regularly. Add the bacon and thyme and cook for another few minutes. Now add the potato and tomato and about half a cup of water and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the potato is soft. You may need to add more water if the mixture is looking too dry.

Meanwhile, thaw the pastry sheets and preheat the oven to 200å¡C. Cut each sheet into large rounds – I use a side plate as a guide to slice around. Reserve the leftover pastry for another time.

Let the vegetable mixture cool a little and then spoon about half a cup of the mixture just off centre on each of the pastry rounds. Fold over to create a semi-circle. Crimp down the pastry edges with a fork and brush with the egg.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes

• You could add some sliced button mushrooms to the vegetable mix.
• Want to make these pasties even more filling? Add a handful of red lentils at the same time as the potatoes.
• This recipe was created by Sophie Hansen