Pantry pot pie

There are a few things that I always, or at least almost always, have on hand: onions, potatoes, carrots, and frozen peas. Add some stuff I happened to have this time...turnips and cabbage...and you have yourself a really yummy vegetable pot pie.

I started with Mark Bittman's pie crust from "How to Cook Everything":


1 1/8 c flour
1 stick unsalted butter (since I only had salted butter on hand, I used that and nixed the salt)
1/8 t salt


Whirl in the food processor until the texture of corn meal (about 10-15 sec).

Dump out into a bowl and add 4 Tbsp cold water. Use a spatula to bring everything together the best you can and then dump onto plastic wrap. Cover with another sheet of plastic wrap, and put into a flat ball. It will be REALLY crumbly...it might not even hold together well. That's okay. It will be the most flaky pie crust you've ever had. Put into the freezer for 10 min and then roll out between the plastic wrap. Turn out into pie crust. If yours falls apart like mine always does, just patch it up. No big deal.


To make a double crust pie, do the above twice.


For the filling, I chopped up a medium onion, a hand full of baby carrots (that's what I had), a potato, a turnip, a bit of cabbage, and about a half handful of chopped herbs. I also included some thawed frozen peas. For the sauce, I sauteed about 1 1/2 T butter with 2 T flour and some red pepper flakes. Then I added 1 c chicken stock and somewhere between 1/2 and 1 c half and half and cooked the mixture until it thickened.

Of course, the sauce and filling goes in between the pie crusts. I vaguely remember that maybe I was supposed to cook one crust for a bit before I filled it, but I didn't. I cooked the whole thing for an 50 min at 350 degrees and then an additional 15 min at 425 degrees until the top was nicely browned (thank you, butter!).




Oh yeah. Flour with butter...with veggies with butter and flour and cream. :) I have a weakness for pot pie, and this was the best one I've ever had.





Just look at this flaky crust!


I served it with an extra portion of salad to make me feel better.