Beef and Veggie Hand Pies

Yummy meat hand pies, it's what's for dinner! 

OMG. Hand pies? I realize, it's sounds kinda gross. You could call it a...hot pocket if you wanted to I suppose, but I think that name has been taken and then tradmarked, so I'll stick with hand pies for now. My first experience with them, was quite a while ago. I ate what was called an "irish hand pie". It is the cousin to the original version of what Nebraskans out here call a "Runza" or what is also called bierock. 

So. Basically have you have this pocket (closed of course) of meat and veggies that is baked and then consumed in all it's yumminess. 

Here's our version :) 

Ingredients for the dough.

What you'll need for the dough: 

1 cup of whole wheat flour

1.5 cup of whole white wheat flour

1 cup of warm water

1 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of sugar

1 tbsp of coconut oil

2.25 tsp yeast.

What you'll need for the filling: 

1lb of pastured grass fed beef

2 small onions

1 tbsp (about 2 cloves) of minced garlic

8 large mushrooms chopped

1 medium yellow squash

1 cup of mozzarella cheese

(If you're soaking your whole wheat flours like we're doing, you'll want to soak the water and flour overnight on your counter and then continue with the recipe.). 

Now, I toss all this in my bread machine in this order: water, salt, sugar, oil flour and then yeast. I throw that bad boy on "dough cycle" and get to cooking the meat and veggies.

Sauteed Veggies

We added in squash because we had a bunch,
but you could add in just about anything you could think of! 

Next, take your pan and throw a tbsp of coconut oil it and saute your veggies. I used onions, mushrooms, chopped garlic, and squash which aside from the mushrooms, all came from the garden. I got those nice and yummy and then added in the meat. I gave it a good stir and browned it up while mixing the flavors thoroughly. 

By this time, your dough should be done. It needs to rise, so if it' hasn't yet, let it rise and then punch it down. Cut it into 8 equal parts and then roll each one out into a circle. Add in some of the filling, and top with cheese. Now you could use ricotta cheese mixed with the meat too, we didn't have that, so I used what I had on hand.

Make sure to just keep cutting in halves
until you have the number of pieces you want.
You could always do more or less depending on your needs. 

Make sure to crimp all edges for a nice closed pie
 so it doesn't come open when you bake it. 

Add in any fillings you like, we added
in cheese!

Take a fork, fold over the pocket and crimp the edges closed with the tines of the fork. Sprinkle some cornmeal on a pan and lay your hand pies down on top. The cornmeal keeps the dough from sticking. 

Bake at 375º for about 25 min and then serve up with pizza sauce, or any other sauce you can think of!