Spinach pie in abundance!

Dave purchased a large pie dish and pie bird for my birthday. I had never seen a pie bird before. They are an old fashioned method of releasing steam from pies. The dish and bird are Austrlaian made and beautiful quality! Dave loves pies so I want to get better at making them.

First I pre-baked some shortcrust pastry and placed the bird on top. Then in went the filling . . .

I used the spinach and cheese pie filling and placed puff pastry over the top.I generally avoid ricotta and feta cheese during pregnancy but ensured this was fresh and well cooked. Here is the completed pie . . .

This pie used a huge amount of my silverbeet harvest. I doubled the recipe. As you can see, this is a large pie dish!!  I often substitute silverbeet for spinach. It is good to remember to pre-wash garden vegetables at another time, rather than doing it as part of the dinner preparations. Garden vegetables tend to be dirtier than purchased counterparts. Washing all the silverbeet took a long time and made my back very sore as I did it immediately prior to making the pie. I would have liked to have a thicker, healthier, homemade crust for this pie. Do any of you have tips for homemade crusts? I like the idea of Tammy's recipe as it can be frozen ahead (a must for me as I would probably find it too much physically to make crust and filling on one day). I want to learn to make really excellent pies!! Any tips will be appreciated.