Recipe: Turkey Pot Pie

The first turkey I've ever cooked myself! I tore through the skin to put rosemary under there (not as neatly as planned).

While I did not officially cook for Thanksgiving, I did get a free Butterball turkey from BJ's, so I had to do something with it! So the morning of Black Friday, I put my 17-pound bird into the oven to cook for FOUR hours. After I let it cool, I began thinking about how to use all that meat. We were already getting a little tired of turkey after hosting my family for early Thanksgiving the week early and then having more of it on the actual day of Thanksgiving. But I couldn't let this bird go to waste! I immediately started looking up recipes, and I found one recipe for turkey pot pie from AllRecipes.com that sounded delicious. I had to try it!

Ingredients

• 2 cups frozen peas and carrots
• 2 cups frozen green beans
• 1 cup sliced celery
• ⅔ cup butter
• ⅔ cup diced onion
• ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon celery seed
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 ¾ cups chicken broth
• 1 ⅓ cups milk
• 4 cups cubed leftover cooked turkey
• 2 (14.1 ounce) packages pastry for a 9-inch double-crust pie

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425˚F.
2. Place frozen peas, carrots, and beans in a saucepan with celery; add enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until celery is tender, about 8 minutes. Drain.
3. While vegetables are simmering, melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add flour, salt, pepper, celery seed, onion powder, and Italian seasoning and whisk until a paste forms, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in chicken broth and then milk until incorporated; bring to a simmer and cook, whisking constantly, until sauce thickens, 3-5 minutes.
4. Remove thickened sauce from the heat; add cooked, drained vegetables and cubed turkey and stir until filling is well combined.
5. Set out two 9-inch pie dishes. Fit one pie pastry into the bottom of each dish. Spoon 1/2 of the pot pie filling into each dish, then lay remaining pie pastries over top. Pinch and roll the top and bottom pastries together at the edges to seal. Use a sharp knife to cut several small slits in each top pastry to allow steam to release while cooking. Place pies on baking sheets.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Check the top crusts for browning; if they are browning too quickly, cover with aluminum foil. Continue to bake until the crusts are golden brown and the filling is bubbly, 15-20 more minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

I simplified the recipe (as usual). I thought I had seen other recipes that used cream of chicken soup in pot pie, and I realized that's what step #3 is here. So I grabbed a can of cream of mushroom soup (I figured my husband would never be able to taste the mushroom in a pot pie!), along with frozen veggies that you can microwave in the bag for four minutes, and saved myself more than ten minutes! 

One thing that is confusing about this recipe is the use of plurals in steps #5 and #6. Yes, there are two pie crusts, but there is only one dish, and you only lay one over top (not two "pastries"). And it's only one top crust that could potentially brown, so I don't know why the recipe reads "crusts." So I had to read this a few times to be sure I wasn't completely confused on what I was supposed to do. 

I did not end up eating the pie the night I made it, but the next day (after microwaving a piece, of course), it was DELICOUS! I already love pot pie anyway, and now that I've made it myself, I will definitely make this recipe again, either with turkey or chicken!