Another rainy day, another time for comfort food.  I went and bought a whole beef roast and cut half of it into cubes for this pie.  You can buy pre cut stew beef at most grocery stores if you think that would be easier for you, I just saw a deal on a good cut of beef and decided to take advantage of it.  have never made beef pie before so this is just as much of an adventure for me as it will be for you when you try it.  It just seemed like such a good thing to make on a cold day.  The only downside of this recipe is that it takes about three hours to make.... But if you're like me and have to wait 3 or more hours for someone to get home for dinner this may just be the recipe for you!  But seriously, it has very little prep, maybe 20 minutes tops, so you can do other things while it cooks.  Like do homework! Hurray for school! Or watch some Stanley Cup Finals, just saying.  (it's still scoreless in game 4 in case you wanted to know)

Guinness Beef Pie

2 1/2 Cups Beef Cubes

1 Carrot

2 Potatoes

1 Onion
1 Cup Frozen Peas

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Can Guinness

1 Sprig Rosemary

Salt 

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Flour

Mushrooms (any variety)

Beef Stock

Puff Pastry (I use premade frozen)

1 Egg

Start by preheating the oven to 375 F and taking the puff pastry out of the freezer to thaw.
Take the beef cubes and dredge (cover) in flour, and sprinkle some salt, pepper and garlic powder to season. This will help make a nice thick gravy later. (see below)

Then place the meat into a hot frying pan with a few tablespoons of oil in the bottom. Brown until it is a nice dark brown color like the meat seen below.  This will take about 10 minutes.

Once the meat is browned, add your onion and garlic that has been roughly chopped and cook until it becomes slightly translucent.  If there isn't much oil left at the bottom of the pan then feel free to add some more oil or even better, add some butter!

Now add the carrot that has been cut into equal size chunks (I usually keep mine pretty big to make the pie look a bit more rustic) and your mushrooms (this time I used half a portobello and maybe 6-7 small brown mushrooms, but you can use any kind you have laying around)

Cook until the mushrooms start to brown and shrink a bit.  Again if your pan is dry, throw in a bit more butter (mushrooms love butter).

Once everything has cooked together for a little bit, add a whole can (or bottle) of Guinness and cook for about a minute to deglaze the pan (get all of the tasty caramelized bits off the bottom) 

By this point your oven should be preheated, so you can transfer your concoction to an oven safe dish.   I put mine in an old cast iron pan just because I think it looks pretty.

Add your potatoes that have been cut into chunks. I just cut each potato into about 8 pieces. Make sure everything is covered by liquid.  If it isn't add beef stock until covered.  

Cover the whole pan with tin foil and put in the oven.

Then comes the waiting... put your timer on for 2 hours.

After 2 hours stir the meat around, if everything still looks pretty liquid take off the foil and bake for another half hour uncovered. If after that half hour i doesn't look thick enough just spoon some of the liquid into a pan and reduce it until it is the consistency that you want.

At this point add your frozen peas and the rosemary and stir to combine.

Roll out the puff pastry until it is large enough to cover your pie and just drape it overtop.  Then take a knife and slash the top of the pastry just enough to cut all the way through in a few spots.

Once that is done paint the pastry with an egg wash (just an egg beaten and a thin layer put on the pastry) YOU DON'T use the whole egg, just enough for a thin coating on the pastry.

Put back in the oven for another 45 minutes and something like this should come out!

Total Cost for the whole pie: $18

To help keep the cost down, I buy all of my veggies in bulk, not pre cut or washed or any of that garbage, they double the price for something that only takes a few minutes to do.
The only things I bought that were pre done for this recipe is frozen peas (which are cheaper and easier to find than fresh ones anyways), beef stock (probably more cost effective to make your own but that takes time and ingredients too, so it is just WAY more convenient), and the frozen puff pastry (pastry can be finicky and time consuming.  I think it's worth the $5 for two sheets to save myself the headache)

Other than how long it takes, this was really rewarding to eat.  It was just so wholesome and hearty.  If my boyfriend and I would have been a bit less glutenous, there was definitely enough to have leftovers, but we ate the whole thing in one sitting....