Post Thanksgiving Pot Pie

It's been exactly a week since TG.

I'm doing my one leftovers post and then I'm done.

On to Christmas cookies.

Since we didn't host the TG meal, we didn't have as many leftovers as in other years.

So I only made one leftover dish.

But it's one of my favorite dishes of all time: turkey potpie.

Potpie is one of those things that you wish you could eat a lot more often than you know you should.

I've always loved it. When I was a kid, I used to get the frozen ones as a dinnertime treat every once in a while. I loved the way the crust turned mushy in the aluminum pan.

I would probably hate those frozen ones now, but they were delicious in my youth.

But on to my potpie.

Most recipes call for you to make a roux in a saucepan, add broth, milk or cream, vegetables and turkey, and then dump into a pie or casserole dish and top with pastry.

But being lazy busy I wondered why the whole thing couldn't just be done in one ovenproof pan, like my trusty cast-iron skillet.

So I tried it out. I was the guinea pig. And I'm here to say that it makes no sense to use (and have to wash) two pots for potpie, when one works fabulously.

Here's what I did:

1) I added about 2 tablespoons butter to my cast-iron skillet over low heat. When it melted, I added about two tablespoons flour to the pan and whisked it around a bit, to cook the flour. This made the roux.

2) I took the leftover gravy I had and added it to the pan, whisking it in with roux until there were no lumps.

3) I took the leftover cream from my pies and whisked that in, too. At this point, my liquid looked good, but if I had needed more I would have added some milk. Or, if the gravy was overpowering things, I would have added some water.

4) I threw in the leftover TG baked onions—diced, some diced carrots, frozen peas, and diced leftover turkey. If I'd had mushrooms, I would have thrown them in, too. But I didn't.

5) I rolled out a pie crust to the width of my pan (a 9-incher) and placed it on top of the filling, tucking the edges down into the filling. I actually used the leftover scraps from all the pies I made for TG, but any piecrust, even a storebought one, would do. You can also use frozen puff pastry, but that seems more trouble than it's worth, and I personally don't like puff pastry on my pot pie. (I don't like puff pastry much in general, but that's another story.)

6) I baked the whole thing in the oven at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

And voila! One pot turkey potpie!