A comforting dish of spaghetti made into the crust of a pie with a hearty, healthy filling and melty cheese on top, this cozy spaghetti pie makes the most of garden goodness and delivers deliciousness to your table. With heart healthy, vegetarian and gluten free options.
“Hello, how are you?
Have you been alright … through all those lonely
Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights?”
This song is playing through my mind tonight. Do you remember it? Have you even heard of it? It’s a 70’s song from Electric Light Orchestra that somehow sounds better in my head than the music video … yeah maybe I’m old, but in my head I’m not. In my own head, I’m still young, as my body grows older.
A family member called me last weekend, distraught about COVID. The numbers are going up and she’s worried. I don’t blame her. We’ve been so careful in our family and yet still, one family got COVID. One of my them is having lingering effects. I have a friend who’s suffering much worse effects. This virus is real and it’s claimed a lot of lives and impacted so many more we don’t even know about. I think the hardest part of it might be that it doesn’t seem to affect everyone the same way, or even the same person from one episode to the next.
Still, I tried to reassure her. There is only so much we can do to protect ourselves from this crazy disease. Yes, we should all take steps to protect not only ourselves but everyone around us … and to VOTE to get better protections and future solutions in place.
But although we take precautions, we wear masks and wash our hands and we clean things and limit our exposure, in the end, on any given day, none of us know how many tomorrows we shall have. In some ways, perhaps the cancer patients who have been given an estimate actually have an advantage because they know some guess of how many days they have left. The rest of us, we assume we have an unlimited number of days, knowing (in the back of our minds), this is not true. All of our days are numbered. We just don’t know the number.
Still today … we have today. We were given this day, and the next breath. And we can take this day and this breath and make the most of it, as if tomorrow shall not happen. Because no matter our circumstances today, tomorrow IS uncertain. Every moment in life is precious. We can’t let COVID steal this day. Today, this breath, this day … it is a beautiful gift we were given, and it is worth treasuring.
Whenever I find myself feeling down, I turn to the simplest pleasures of life to remind me of joy: a ray of sunshine in the window, watching a bird sail in the sky, a squirrel leap from branch to branch, a sip of hot tea, a snuggle from a cat or a hug from one of my fellow self-quarantined family members. A deer sighting. Blue skies … shifting clouds. Or simply the feeling of another breath filling my body with oxygen. There is so much in this world that makes life worth living RIGHT NOW, despite whatever might be coming.
And there’s food. I know so many of us turn to sweets or fried foods when they are stressed. I try not to turn TOO much towards eating through troubled times (because that leads to a bad place), but food does offer us nourishment and comfort, plus a way of connecting with those around us. This harvest spaghetti pie has a healthy filling of fresh sauteed harvest veggies tucked inside, yet it’s inviting, cozy and comforting, just the thing you need to cuddle up with as the temperatures drop and the world around us seems to be falling apart. If you use whole wheat (or gluten free) pasta, you can even feel good about caring for your body while you’re soothing your taste buds and your soul.
I made this spaghetti pie for my family many weekends ago, when I made the drive to go chanterelle mushroom hunting with my dad and my sister. Even after I arrived at mom and dad’s house, we still had four more hours of driving ahead of us. Dad and I got up early, drove to pick up my sister … and after a long day of driving and hunting shrooms together (40 lb of mushrooms later!), I called my mom on the way back when we were roughly 30 minutes away and asked if she could please put the spaghetti pie in the oven. Because the pie had been in the fridge, it wasn’t done when we got home, but we could smell the promise of dinner wafting through the house and we were SO hungry and ready to eat!
Somehow we managed to fend off our hunger until the pie was done, but then we happily inhaled it. Mom joined us. It was a long but wonderful little mushroom adventure, with a perfect spaghetti pie ending.
This recipe was inspired by Hostess at Heart’s Spaghetti Pie recipe.
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Harvest Spaghetti Pie
- Yield: 2 spaghetti pies (8 – 12 servings) 1x
Ingredients
For the spaghetti crusts:
- 8 oz. spaghetti (regular, whole wheat or gluten free)
- 1 – 1 1/3 cups shredded Asiago, Parmesan or Romano cheese
- 4 eggs, whisked
For the harvest filling:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 3 – 5 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped
- 4 cups peeled, chopped eggplant (or zucchini)
- 3/4 cup chopped banana or bell pepper
- Red Robin Seasoning (or your favorite seasoned salt), Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute (or your favorite no-salt seasoning) and hot pepper flakes
- 1/4 cup chopped mixed fresh basil & sage
- 2 cups (packed) kale or spinach leaves
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups chopped fresh garden tomato
For the top:
- 3 – 4 cups meat sauce (recommended: my Italian Bolognese or Greek Moussaka sauce) or for a vegetarian version: your favorite marinara
- 2 – 4 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the spaghetti and cook until tender. Strain out the liquid. Spray two pie pans with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.
- While the spaghetti is cooking, prep the filling. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the oil and use a spatula to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is soft & translucent. Stir in the eggplant and pepper. Season to taste with the seasonings and cook until the eggplant is tender.
- Add in the fresh herbs, kale (or spinach) and tomatoes and cook for a minute or two longer, until the kale is wilted.
- Put the spaghetti back in the pan and toss with the cheese and egg. Divide the pasta amongst the two pie pans, making a well in the center and pushing the pasta up the sides to form a “crust”.
- Add half the filling to each pan, spreading out to form a smooth layer, then top with sauce and cheese.
- Bake at 350 F. for 25 – 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the pie is heated through. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then cut into pie pieces and enjoy!
Notes
You can pre-make the spaghetti pies, then cover and refrigerate until ready to bake. Cover the pie with foil during the first half of cooking and increase the cooking time to roughly an hour. Pies can also be frozen but frozen pies will take much longer to cook.
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1 comment
Thank you so much for the shout out! We love this recipe and its perfect comfort food. Like you, we sure appreciate so much and do what we can to stay healthy.