Sluttishly Savoury: Vegan Mushroom, Leek and Sausage Pie

Remember the other week when we said we'd try to bring you more vegan and vegetarian recipes? Well, we've kept our promise and done some investigating into some suitably delicious dishes, and of my tentative culinary experiments so far, this pie certainly went down a treat with my vegan dinner guest and guinea pig. This is easy to make, and depending on whether you're vegan yourself or cooking for a friend, you can even cheat by buying the pastry ready-made.

In the absence of my nearest supermarket stocking vegan margarine, I made mine using cheater's frozen puff-pastry JusRol, which is suitable for vegans, and the brand my vegan friend recommended when I phoned her from Sainsburys in a confused panic. If your fridge is better stocked for vegans than mine and you can get your mitts on vegan margarine, you can easily make your own shortcrust pastry, so if you're feeling ambitious, I've included the instructions below.

What you'll need is:
For the crust:

• 500g ready-made pastry, defrosted OR
• 115g vegan margarine and 230g flour

(The rule of thumb apparently is to double-up the margarine weight to get the amount of flour you need)
For the filling:

• 3tbsp soy sauce
• 6tbsp red wine
• Handful of cashew nuts
• Tin of red kidney beans
• 6 vegan sausages (like Linda McCartney or similar)
• 20 small mushrooms
• 1 large leek
• Olive oil, for frying

What you'll need to do is:

• If you're making your own pastry, rub the margarine into the flour until you have a mixture that looks like breadcrumbs. Slowly add water until it's bound together into a dough, and then set aside.
• Pre-heat your oven to 200C and pop your sausages in to cook whilst you're preparing the rest of the filling.
• Heat your oil, chop your leeks and mushroom and get them frying in a saucepan until they start to soften. When they're looking lovely, add your wine, sauce, nuts and beans and simmer for ten minutes.
• By this point your sausages should be done. Chop them into chunks and stir them in to the mixture, but leave the oven on. Grease and line your pie dish, then spoon in the filling.
• Pop a pastry lid on, remembering to seal at the edges, then bake for half an hour until the pastry's golden brown on top.
• For a full-on carb-fest, serve with gravy and mash. (Remembering to use soy milk and vegan margarine in the mash if you like your potatoes pimped.)