Inspiration: Recently, I’ve been battling mental fog. This blank greyness not only makes it difficult to think my way out of a paper bag — it turns cooking/baking from a joy into a chore. (Which sucks, btw.) Which means my husband and I end up eating eggs & pancakes and toasty cheese sandwiches & soup. But as much as I love these comfort classics, there’s only so long you can eat them until you start longing for a veggie.

So, on a day when I found myself with two brain cells to rub together, I flipped open The Pioneer Woman’s Super Easy Cookbook, hoping to find something new and easy to make.

And Mrs. Drummond didn’t let me down.

Veggie Tot Pie is a super versatile veggie forward dish that’s easy and cheap to make!

My Recipe Changes: Just as Ree instructed, I switched up the veggies a bit to suit our tastes and what I had in my freezer. (Which explains why I used crowns instead of tater-tots.)

I also discovered that unless you’ve got an enormous cast-iron skillet, you only need one can of Campbell’s condensed soup called for in the recipe (it’s what makes the sauce that ties the dish together). I favor Campbell’s reduced sodium Cream of Mushroom soup. It helps control the amount of salt in the end dish, allowing me to add things like soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce for extra depth of flavor.

And because of stupid, stupid allergies, I can’t add the called for onions and garlic — so I leaned hard against my spice cabinet. In the above pic, I added teaspoons of turmeric, paprika, black pepper, mushroom powder, tomato paste, and chili crisp.

In recent iterations — I’ve added frozen cubed sweet potatoes and fresh peppers to my original corn, pea, and carrot veggie mixture. I also used Abbot’s Butcher plant-based chorizo to make the pie into a main dish rather than a side. Adding the faux meat meant leaning into the chorizo spices — so I added a teaspoon of coriander, sweet paprika, black pepper, oregano, and chipotle instead. And it turned out great!

Christie: This is a simple dish I can see Tuppence cooking on a weeknight when her (and Tommy’s) kids were growing up. The tots on top make it fun (and the entire dish goes well with a dash of ketchup), and the wealth of veggies hiding in the gravy makes it easy to get the kids to eat their vegetables!