Roasted Vegetable and Meat Pies

Larry says, and rightly so, that I don’t know how to cook in small amounts. This means I always have leftovers. Because I prefer NOT to eat my leftovers the same way I had them as firstovers, I get very creative when re-purposing them. I always have. Even back in my restaurant management days, my chef and I actually planned meals from our leftovers and had them on the menus. I guess it is just a gift. 🙂

Who says leftovers have to be boring? Turn them into something fun and just as delicious as the firstovers. My latest leftover recreation was from my roasted fall vegetables, steak and chicken. Roasted Fall Vegetables They went from being a side dish to a main dish with the wave of my magic wooden spoon, and a few other added ingredients. I turned them into pot pies.

I made my dough for the pot pie toppings, and let it set in the fridge for about an hour before using it for my pies.

While the dough was setting, I cut my steak and chicken into cubes and mixed it with the remainder of the vegetables and heated them all up with a little olive oil. At first I was just going to make the pies with either chicken or steak, but I didn’t think I had enough of either to do that. It turned out I was wrong. Oh well. We had them for dinner and Larry had a couple for lunches too. He always says I have a gift of turning leftovers into even more food that what I started out with. You have to go with your gifts I guess. 🙂

Next I added about 1 cup of heavy whipping cream and about 1/2 cup of flour to the mix and adjusted my seasonings a bit for the sauce. I let it all cook for about 5-10 minutes, while stirring frequently. When adding flour you want to make sure it is well incorporated into the mix and cooked, otherwise you will taste the flour, which believe me, is not a good taste on its own.

Preheat the oven to about 375* F or about 190* C.

Spray the ramekins with cooking spray.

Once everything was cooked and blended together, I spooned the mixture into my ramekins and covered them with dough to make my pot pies. Then I added a few slashes to the tops to allow the gases to release while baking. I added a little eggwash to the tops to help with the browning and baked them for about an hour or until they were golden brown.

And voila! The Queen and I have done it again. We always have so much fun recreating from the leftovers. Re-using my leftovers has always been something I have been very good at, but especially now, when the price of food has skyrocketed so much, I definitely re-use all of my leftovers as much as I can. I do my best to NOT let anything go to waste. Waste not want not you know.

Have fun in the kitchen and definitely play with your food. In the meantime, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.