Funny story, but totally true... My mother and I went foraging for pine mushrooms. On our journey we passed a chestnut farm. We love them, so turned the car around and went back. We drove up the driveway of the chestnut farm and followed the signs towards the dark shed and parked. As I was getting my dog out of the car I heard a little voice coming from the dark shed say "Dimi?" (that's my mothers name), mum opened up the boot to grab her purse, then I heard the voice again "DIMI!"! Out of all the chestnut farms we happened to stop at one of my mums third cousins, it's her family farm and she was their helping out for the day picking chestnuts out of there spiky case. Mum had no idea. So as well as grabbing a huge bag of chestnuts we got a tour of the farm! Mum didn't need her purse after all. Family never pays. Greek rule.

PINE MUSHROOM AND CHESTNUT PIE

Serves 2 I Prep time 15 min I Cook time 40 min
Gluten Free I Soy Free I Sugar Free

PIE FILLING

Splash olive oil
2 tbsp butter
2 large handfuls pine mushrooms, sliced*
1 small leek, white part sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
½ cup white wine
1 ½ cups chestnuts, peeled
Sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
½ cup cherry tomato passata
½ cup water
1 tsp GF chicken stock powder
½ cup green beans, chopped
Freshly cracked black pepper

PIE TOPPING

1 ½ cups sweet potato, diced
2 tbsp butter
⅓ cup milk
125g ricotta cheese
2 generous tbsp parmesan cheese
Pinch murray river salt flakes
Freshly cracked black pepper

METHOD

Heat olive oil & butter over a high heat in a medium saucepan. Add mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add leek & garlic, reduce heat to low and cook for a couple minutes. Stir though wine. Pop in chestnuts, rosemary, passata, water, stock, beans and simmer for 5 mins. Season with pepper and taste for salt, season if needed. Pour into 7-8 inch pie dish, set aside.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
Rinse out medium saucepan, add sweet potato and cover with water, cook until tender, drain water. Mash with a masher by hand (or use a food processor), add butter and milk, pop back on heat until butter is melted. Remove from heat and stir through ricotta, parmesan and season well. Pour over pie filling.
Bake for 30-40 min or until top is golden.

* I used saffron milk caps which I foraged myself, you can use any mushroom or a combination, whichever you like.