Unexpected and Delicious - By Ann

Several days ago, I cooked a turkey breast in my crockpot. It turned out pretty good. Not the best I've had, but it served the purpose. I had tons of left over meat, though. I've been thinking that I wanted to make a turkey pot pie. But - I don't always like it when I cut into a whole pie and the filling spills out and you don't get equal and uniform pieces. I have a DeMarle brioche pan (shown below). It's silicone. I decided to try making small, individual pies. After reading two or three different recipes, I decided to just throw something together.

This is what I did.

Mini Turkey Pot Pies

Filling:

1-2 cups chopped, cooked turkey
1/2 c diced carrot
1/2 c diced celery
1/2 onion, diced
1/4 c butter
Salt and Pepper
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1/2 to 3/4 c milk

To speed things up, I placed the carrot, celery and onion in a bowl with about 1/2 cup of water. I covered it and cooked it for about 2-3 minutes in the microwave. Until crisp tender. I then drained off the water and sauted it in a sauce pan in the butter on the stove for just a couple of minutes. I added salt and pepper and then the can of soup. Using the milk, I thinned out the mixture a little. I then stirred in the turkey and more milk to reach the consistency I wanted. I turned off the heat and moved on to the pie crust.

Pie Crust:

1 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 c shortening
3 T very cold water

Place flour and salt in a bowl with shortening. Cut the shortening in with a pastry cutter until well blended at crumbly. Add the water and gently combine. It may seem dry, but it will come together. It makes a very light and flaky crust. One batch is enough for the bottom of one pie pan. If you wish to cover the top of your pie as well, you will need to double this recipe. In the case of these little pot pies, I had to double it. I rolled the dough out thin, cut it into circles and carefully lined each of the cups. I scooped the filling in to each one and then covered them with another circle of pie crust dough, and cut a small slit in the top with a knife. The little pies baked at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Here is the finished product. Each little pie is the size of a muffin.

What I would do differently? I'd roll the crust as thin as I could possibly get it (while still being able to handle it, of course). I would also make the filling a little bit more soupy. It needed just a tad more juice. I think I might bake them closer to 40-45 minutes. Some more crisp on the dough would have been great.

My son said he wanted a big bowl of the filling. It was very tasty, and such a very simple recipe. Don't you love it when things like that just come together?