Last night I had about 4 small servings of pork left over from our 4th of July celebration (we smoked a pork loin), about half of a casserole dish of cooked, cubed, potatoes, and also some leftover canned corn languishing in the fridge. I also found some green onions on their last leg. What to do with those leftovers? Too much good food to just throw away but we were tired of leftover BBQ food! Well, you know I love Redoing Leftovers!
I decided to try a pot pie recipe that I've been wanting to try. Laura at Heavenly Homemaker recently posted about a pot pie using a batter crust (no rolling- yoo-hoo!). I remember thinking that I would probably make homemade pot pie more often if I didn't have to make a pie crust (or worse,... buy one), so this was a recipe I really wanted to try.
Summer doesn't sound like the time for making homemade pot pie but really it's a great way to either empty your fridge of leftovers or use up some garden vegetables.
The batter crust turned out PERFECT! I will never again buy or roll out pie crust for pot pie. I tweeked Laura's original recipe just a tad by adding some baking powder & salt. I wanted a puffier crust for my potpie but I bet her original recipe would be great also.
I used leftover pork for my meat. You could use any leftover cooked, meat, chicken, turkey (which will be great for re-doing Thanksgiving leftovers), beef (burger, roast or leftover steak), just cut it into bite-sized cubes. I've even made vegetable pot pies not using any meat at all and they are just as delicious. Feel free to use your own combination of vegetables (peas, green beans, carrots-which I dearly love but didn't have any), slices of squash, zucchini, turnips; just use what you have on hand). If you don't have any onion, don't sweat it, just skip them. I used chicken bouillon cubes to make my chicken broth but you could use homemade from the freezer or canned broth. I would say if you use beef, use beef broth. Also, if you want to cook up a small amount of meat, do that. Just brown it first before starting the recipe.
Here's how I made Homemade Pot Pie with Batter Crust AT HOME MY WAY:
Homemade Pot Pie With Batter Crust
Ingredients for Filling:
- Meat - use turkey, chicken, pork, beef- about 1 1/2 cups of cooked meat (or more if you like)
- Onion if you have it (like 1/4 cup chopped onion)
- Potatoes (raw or cooked, peeled and cubed), about 1 1/2- 2 cups of cubed potatoes. Sweet potatoes would be divine!
- Other vegetables like corn, carrots, peas, green beans, squash, (drained if canned) (I only had about 1/2 can of corn but just add what you want.)
- 2 Tablespoons butter/margarine
- 2 cups broth (I used 2 cups hot water + 2 chicken bouillon cubes, dissolved, to equal 2 cups broth)
- 1/2 cup COLD water
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- Salt/pepper as you like
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder (optional-Heavenly Homemaker didn't use but I like a puffy crust).
1/2 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine and blend until smooth the ingredients for the batter crust in a med-size bowl. It should look like this:
In a large skillet (mine made a lot so if you don't have a large skillet, go ahead and use a big pot so that it doesn't get too full), melt the butter/margarine, add chopped onion if you have it and let the onions cook slowly about 5 minutes. Add cubed (cooked or uncooked would be fine) potatoes, (leftover baked potatoes, peeled and cubed would work GREAT too!). (If your potatoes are uncooked, simmer them with the onion/butter until they soften just a bit. If using raw carrots, add them with the raw potatoes so they have a chance to cook before adding the other vegetables.) Now stir in the cooked meat. Add other vegetables (they should be drained) (frozen would not need to be cooked first), stir. Add the broth. Stir again.
Bring this mixture to a slow simmer without a lid.
In a separate small dish/cup, combine the 1/2 cup COLD water with the 2 Tablespoons flour. Stir until smooth.
When the meat/vegetables/broth are simmering, add the water/flour mixture, stirring, and cook until the filling is thick. That just takes a few minutes. Salt & pepper. It will just thicken some like runny gravy and look like this:
Pour into a baking dish (no lid)/casserole/cake pan.
Pour over the batter/crust (if you make a 9 x 13 pot pie, you might need to double the recipe for the batter/crust because I only baked mine in a medium casserole dish and I could have used more crust).
The batter just pours on like in this picture.
After removing mine from the oven, I let it rest about 10 minutes before serving. It set up nicely!
Now make a big plate and enjoy a terrific comfort meal that would make most ANYONE squeal with delight!
Enjoy!
Gina