Pot {roast} Pie

I LOVE my baking counter/station. It is a huge reason why I'm quick to do these kinds of meals.
Everything in one place and easy clean up, right next to the sink!

My original plan for today included a few appointments and lots of laundry. But I'm feeling less energetic than I anticipated, so I spent some time sitting in the sunshine coming through the living room window (yes, it actually does that from time to time in March even if I can't believe it myself) and paid bills and such. We have our child birth education class this evening and I promised Eric I'd have something ready to eat and run when he gets home. But I wasn't feelin it. I had made pizza for that purpose but we ate some last night and both ended up eating it for lunch today. Woops.

So I've got this left over pot roast in the fridge. It wasn't so much a hit the first time around, but some added spices and such, breaking down the meat a little more, and throwing it in a flaky pie crust could possibly smooth things over. Thought I'd give it a try.

I got this fun little pie maker thingy as a wedding shower present from Eric's Auntie Mo. It came with its own cook book and I've actually used it more than once. I love meat pies (thank you, 4 months in South Africa) so I like to do this kind of thing with left overs from time to time.

The most time consuming aspect of this meal is working with pastry dough. I got the one I like best from a recipe for chicken pot pie online. It just uses butter, no shortening. It's really important to keep it cold, so I had to put it in the freezer while I pre-heated the pie maker and warmed up the filling on the stove.

In what I'm assuming is an attempt to appeal to the masses, the recipes in the book call for pre-made crusts: regular pie crust for the bottom, and puff pastry for the tops. But I can make my own for cheaper, so I just deal with the extra time it takes. A lot of times I end up with left over dough when I make fruit pies, etc so this is another good use-it-up option for that issue.

At any rate, these only take about 10 minutes to bake as opposed to the usual 40-60 min a regular size pie would take in the oven, so there is a time saving aspect about these for sure.

And in case it needs to be disclosed, the magic I added includes more salt and pepper, a dash of garlic powder, onion powder, some oregano and basil, and a few squirts of Worcestershire sauce to amp up the flavor against the abundance of crust.

That's the fancy schmancy mechanical-maker-doo, BUT when I make chicken pot pie (and I make a mean chicken pot pie) I combine all the ingredients in a glass pyrex storage bowl (which happens to be oven-safe) and just seal the crust around the top and bake it in the oven. That way, after we've eaten some, I can just put the lid on and put it in the fridge. No special machinery required. This could just have easily been prepared using that method- down to the fact that being leftovers, it had been stored in said pyrex container!

Filling and topping with lid

Done-zos!