Homemade Pot Pie (with Turkey leftovers)

I am a little late getting this post out as I'm guessing most of you will have already come up with a means for devouring your leftover Turkey by now.  That said, Jeff and I were trying to figure out what to do with his on Sunday and we decided to use it in a Pot Pie.  I've never made one from scratch before, but it was pretty simple and I had a lot of fun with it!  I think this might become a post-Thanksgiving tradition for us.

I did a little pot-pie research and ended up kind of winging it based on some simple principles.

1. Decide whether you want the pie-crust kind of pot pie or the biscuit-kind of pot pie.  If you want the biscuit kind, you'll have to look elsewhere.  Jeff and I are both definitely pie-crust pot pie kinds of people!

2. Decide whether you want to shave a few calories and just top your pie with crust or whether you're going to go all out and make this like a real pie with a top and bottom crust.

3. Once you have those very important pot-pie decisions made, proceed with making or buying a single or double version of your favorite pie crust.  You can find mine HERE, although for pot pie, I left out the sugar and I mix by hand instead of using a food processor.

4. Prepare your filling.  I chopped up about 2 cups of turkey leftovers and set them aside.  Then I diced 2 carrots, 1/2 onion and about 6 or 7 mushrooms and sauteed them, in that order (spaced about 2 minutes apart) in some butter.  Meanwhile, I defrosted 1/2 bag of frozen peas under some cool water.

5. Prepare your gravy.  For this I melted 5 T of butter in a sauce pan.  When it was just barely starting to brown, I added in 6 T of flour.  Stir constantly until smooth.  Slowly, stirring constantly, add 1 3/4 cups chicken broth and 1/2 cup of Half & Half.  After combined and smooth, add whatever seasonings sound good to you.  I did: 1/2 tsp salt, a few grinds of fresh pepper, about 2 tsp of italian seasoning a few hearty shakes of garlic powder and a dash of Marsala wine.  Stir over low heat until the gravy thickens.

6. Assemble.  Mix the gravy with the turkey and veggies.  Roll out your pie crusts and assemble the pot pie.

7. Bake at 425 F for 35-40 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly.

8. Let rest for about 10-15 minutes and dig in!

I think this would be a little bit easier to eat if I could make individual pies next time.  But I didn't have any oven safe bowls on hand.  And this was still lovely.

If any of you have creative ideas for Thanksgiving leftovers, I would love to hear about them!