Beef Pot Pie

Hi all:

This is another recipe from my best-selling cookbook, "Crap, What Am I Going to Make For Dinner?"

Let me clarify "best-selling"; by best-selling I mean, it has been the best selling cookbook "I" have ever written. Yes, I have only written this one cookbook, but I have sold a whopping 4 or 5 copies, so it really is the best-selling book "I" have ever written. (My novel, on the other hand, is still in the editing stage, so I can't really say it is a best-seller yet.)

I had a real craving for pot pie yesterday and bought enough ingredients to make 3 of them. I gave two away to my sister, who is in need of some support on the Homefront right now, and kept the other for dinner.  Boy, am I glad I did!  I forgot just how good these are. I developed this recipe many years ago and have made it with both beef and chicken.  Both are equally good.  I urge you to try one.

Doesn't it look delish?

Here is the recipe, right out of the pages of my best-selling cookbook.

I did also use 2 other ingredients which were somehow left out of this recipe; garlic powder and onion powder, my two pantry staples.  You can't cook without them, as far as I am concerned. I also omitted the milk this time and it turned out fine.

This will make 1 very large pot pie or 2 smaller ones. I used frozen pie shells as I don't like fussing with making pastry dough.  They are usually very good and I just used the No-Name brand.

Here are also some extra tips and techniques I used for this recipe.

Brown the ground beef (or cubed chicken breast) in olive oil. Add salt, pepper, basil and the onion and garlic powders. Stir together and when browned, drain the fat and set the meat aside.

In a large Dutch oven, brown the red onions in olive oil. Once browned, add the diced carrots, celery, mushrooms, 2 Bay leaves and the beef (or chicken bullion). I used Oxo beef bouillon sachets. They give a nice, concentrated flavour to the broth.  I have tried the broth in cartons for this recipe, but these sachets really give a lot more flavour.  I simply dissolve each sachet in about 1 cup of hot water and then add the buillion to the vegetables. Let the vegetables simmer and soften for about 10-15 minutes, then strain the vegetables from the broth, using a mesh strainer over a large bowl.  Keep them separate until later.

This has 25% less sodium and still tasted fine.

Now to make the roux.  In the same Dutch oven, which is now empty of vegetables and broth, add about 3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil (or butter) and add in an equal amount of flour. Slowly incorporate the flour into the olive oil until a thick paste is formed. Cook over lower heat until the flour taste has been cooked off (3 -4 minutes or so). Once done, add the broth back into the flour roux very slowly, using a whisk to avoid lumps.  Keep whisking and slowly incorporate all the broth. Next, add the vegetables back into the broth.  Simmer for a few minutes, to thicken the broth.  I did add a little Veloutine to help thicken the broth.  Sometimes, it can be runny.

Now, just add the beef (or chicken) back in with the broth and vegetables, stir and fill your bottom pie shell with this mixture. I usually use a fork to pierce the bottom pie shell first, before I fill it. Next, remove the other pie shell from its foil pan (I usually remove it when it is slightly defrosted. If you wait until it is completely defrosted, the pastry will stick to the foil pie pan and will tear). Put the top pastry shell onto the pie base and pinch the edges to seal. Use a fork or knife to make small slits in the top pastry, to allow steam to escape. I also used strips of foil to cover the pie edges once pinched, so that they don't burn while baking. Place the pie on a foil lined baking sheet and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden.

That's it!! Trust me, you will love it.

Side note:   Did you notice that fancy bright orange bowl I was using? It is from a set of 4 "ZAK! Designs" bowls that I found here at Winners a few months ago. I know you can find them on Amazon, but I was lucky to find them elsewhere. They are melamine, are very versatile and come in festive confetti colours. I love them.  Here is 3 of them.  The other is AWOL.( somewhere buried in my fridge).

Enjoy the Pot Pie.

Rosie