Sick of Turkey? Pot-Pie It.

Ugh, I am so full. But there is still a LOT of food in the refrigerator and there comes a time when one simply cannot bear the thought of eating the same (albeit delicious) meal again. And that is the time when I remember the adage they taught us in elementary school, "Recycle-Reuse-Reduce." Mashed potatoes can become potato pancakes, but there are even more uses for leftover turkey.

If you're over the turkey sandwich and you aren't into the turkey tetrazzini or turkey noodle soup, how about turkey pot-pies without the pot? These single-serving pies are perhaps a little more like empanadas than pot-pies but are easy to make and create delicious individual portions that use up that turkey in no time.

 Mini Turkey Pot-Pies
--1 tbsp olive oil
--1 small onion, diced
--garlic, minced
--8oz. frozen peas and carrots
--1 cup shredded cooked turkey meat
--1 cup chicken broth
--1 tsp. flour (or corn starch, if needed to thicken)
--salt & pepper
--1 package of refrigerated pie crusts (contains two pie crusts)
--cooking spray

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Sautè the onion and garlic for a few minutes, until the garlic is fragrant and the onion is translucent. Add the frozen peas and carrots mixture and stir heartily to mix together.

Add the chicken broth and the shredded turkey and combine well. Season with a little bit of salt and black pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Depending upon the turkey (how it was cooked, how old it is, how much it has dried up), the mixture may soak up more or less broth. Use flour or corn starch to thicken the mixture so that it is less liquid.

Spray a baking sheet with the cooking spray. Lay out the pie crusts and cut into quarters (you can cut into halves if you want bigger pies). Place a large dollop of the filling onto the center of the pie crust quarter and fold up the edges to create a little purse or dumpling. You may need to wet your fingertips a little to create a good seal on the folds.

Cook at 325 degrees for 15 or so minutes or until the crusts are golden brown. Use a spatula to remove from the baking sheet so the bottoms do not continue to brown.

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 8 mini pies
Calories: 297 per pie

Holly Jolly Southern Holiday

I trust not everyone is recovered from this years holidays. And if you are, it's just in time for New Years so we can start the recovery process all over again!

I come from a long line of Georgia women. And nothing says "Georgia at Christmas" like pecan pie. The recipe below is inspired by three different recipes from three very different southerners, but with my own twists.

By adding bourbon, white vinegar, and honey I didn't have to use corn syrup like most traditional pecan pies do. This cuts the sugary content down and makes it corn free if you have an allergy.


Honey Bourbon Pecan Pie
--1 pie shell
--3 eggs
--1/2 stick of butter, melted
--1/4 cup of honey
--1/3 cup of brown sugar
--1/4 cup of sugar
--1 Tbsp. white vingear
--1 Tbsp. flour
--pinch of salt
--1 tbsp. vanilla
--1/4 tsp. lemon juice
--1/4 tsp. cinammon
--2 Tbsp. bourbon
--1 cup of chopped pecans


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl whish the eggs until just barely beaten. Add each ingredient and give a few good stirs (you don't want to over beat the eggs) until all ingredients are mixed.

Pour into pie shell and bake for 30-40 minutes until crust is golden brown and pie center has a nice brown crust.

Easy as pie!

Stew + Pie Crust = Pot Pie?

I love pie crusts, as you may have noticed. And I welcome any excuse to put dinner inside of one. So I decided I would make a cioppino-inspired stew but with less fish and baked inside a pie crust. So it was to be a seafood pot pie of sorts...

Seafood Pot Pie

--1/2 stick of butter
--minced garlic
--mushrooms, sliced
--asparagus, snapped into 1/2" to 1" pieces
--scallops and/or rock shrimp
--14.5oz can of diced tomatoes, undrained
--flour or corn starch
--2 pie crusts, rolled out

In a non-stick pan with deep sides, melt butter over medium heat. Saute garlic for one minute before adding the mushrooms and the asparagus. Cook in the butter until veggies are tender and mushrooms begin to brown. Remove from pan.


In the same pan, add the scallops/shrimp. I cooked mine in a "dry" pan (which means I didn't add any new butter or oil, and just used what little residue was left from the veggies).


Fish is often over cooked (and since this fish was added back into a stew) I seared the scallops for only about a minute.

Add the can of tomatoes and simmer on medium for a few minutes to allow the tomatoes to get warm. Add the mushroom/asparagus mix back into the pan and stir all together. If sauce is fairly liquid, add cornstarch or flour, 1 teaspoon at a time to make it a more sauce-like consistency.


Line a pie pan or bread loaf pan with the pie crusts, leaving enough edges hanging over to cover the top once filled. Scoop the seafood mix into the pan and cover completely with the pie crusts.


Bake at 425 until pie crust is delightfully golden brown on top.

Everything Tastes Better In A Pie Crust

I had a pie crust left over from Thanksgiving living in my freezer. I used to make my own crusts from scratch, until I discovered that the ones I bought from the store tasted exactly the same. (What? Sometimes you have to cut corners).

I also had steak and chicken thawed in the refrigerator. And buttermilk left over from mashed potatoes and pancake making. I also had a very pregnant, very hungry, sister and her very tall, always hungry, husband to feed.


I decided to make some sort of version of Shepherd's Pie based on the ingredients we had handy. I'd never made one before and just sort of, well, was winging it based on what I remembered from dining at many a fine Irish establishment.

Upside Down Shephard's Pie:

--chicken, sliced into bite-sized chunks
--steak, sliced into bite-sized chunks
--olive oil
--1 onion, diced to your size preference
--garlic
--sliced mushrooms
--beef bouillon
--Worcestershire sauce
--1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
--tarragon
--parsley
--flour
--3 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks for mashing
--buttermilk
--1 stick butter
--1 pie crust

The Meat & Gravy:
Cook chicken in olive oil over medium to medium high heat until free of salmonella. Remove to plate. In same pan cook steak in olive oil over medium to medium high heat until outside is brown but inside is still mostly rare. Put with chicken.


In same pan, melt 1/3 of stick of butter. Add garlic and onion. Cook 2 minutes until fragrant and onion begins to get translucent. Add mushrooms and cook down. Add 2 spoonfuls of bouillon paste (or 1 bouillion cube). You do NOT need to melt the bouillon first. We are making gravy with it! Splash in some Worcestershire sauce and shake in parsley and tarragon.

(I'm terrible at measuring, so here's my tip: don't over do it! I just shake it a little at a time until it tastes like delicious).

Add the can of diced tomatoes and scrape all the bits together. Add the cooked chicken and cooked steak back into the mix. If mix seems too liquid, add a tsp of flour and stir it all up. The flour will thicken the gravy.


The Mashed Potatoes:
Cover the chopped potatoes in large pot with cold water. Heat on high heat until water is boiling. (I'm at altitude so I don't know how long it takes potatoes to cook at lower elevations). Let potatoes/water boil for a few minutes. Potatoes are ready to be mashed when you can easily stick a fork into them.

I used a hand held potato masher to smash up the potatoes. Then I added the other 2/3 stick of butter and a few splashes of buttermilk. Pregnant sister mashed her little heart out and added buttermilk as needed to make the potatoes fluffy but not too creamy.

Then I added it one TBSP of flour to make them thicker and sticky for the pie.

We put the potatoes in the bottom of the pie crust (or Shepherd's Pie was upside down, remember?!) and smoothed them around to make a nice potato bed for all the meat mix to live inside of. The meat/gravy mix went on top of the potato bed.


Bake in the oven at 350 until the pie crust is golden on the edges.