Bake the pies in some interesting oven-proof dishes and they become edible works of art.

Don’t panic—this is actually an easy dish to make! And what an elegant use for leftover turkey, chicken or beef. Not to mention that this tastes infinitely better than frozen, prepared pot pies. These can be very free-form in their assembly. Look around your kitchen for small oven-safe dishes in which to bake these. I used 4-1/2″ square Pyrex oven-proof dishes. All the kids happily dug into their dinner tonight!

Turkey Pot Pie (makes 4-5 small pies)

Pie crust for double crust pie (click here for a link to a recipe)

For the filling:

• 1-1/2 c. cooked, chopped turkey (or other meat)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 medium potatoes, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 3/4 c. frozen peas
• salt and pepper
• 2 Tbs. olive oil

For the cream sauce:

• 3 Tbs. butter
• 4 Tbs. flour
• 1 to 2 c. milk
• salt
• 1 tsp. thyme
• 1 large bay leaf

1. Saute all of the vegetables in the olive oil until the potatoes and carrots just begin to get tender. Stir in the turkey and set aside.

2. While the vegetables are cooking, make the pie crust and set aside in the refrigerator.

3. Make the white sauce: Melt the butter in a sauce pan, whisk in the flour. Turn the heat to very low, and very slowly, while continuing to whisk, pour in the milk just a little at a time. Put in the bay leaf and thyme, and continue to stir while the sauce thickens. When it’s as thick or thin as you like, take it off the heat and set aside, season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Assemble the pies (the fun part): Roll out the dough very thin, cut into pieces a bit larger than your baking dishes, and line the bottom of the dish, overlapping about 1/2″. Repeat for each of your dishes. Fill each dish with about 1/4 of the meat-vegie filling. Remove and discard the bay leaf from the cream sauce, and top the filling with 1/4 of sauce, then use a spoon to gently mix it down into the filling. Roll out remaining dough and cut pieces to top each pie. Fold the extra 1/2″ of bottom crust up over the top crust and roughly crimp.

5. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until the crust in nicely browned. Serve piping hot.

Fill each pie with 1/4 of the meat-vegie filling.

Pour over 1/4 of the cream sauce.