Got Leftover Turkey? Put it in a Pie!

Since Angel was the winner of our Black Friday contest, we decided to give her a little bonus, and make the two dishes she requested.  I’m starting off with turkey pot pie.  I mean, who doesn’t have leftover turkey right now?  And with the cold weather, what’s better than a hot, baked meal? 

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the crust:
2 ½ cups flour
12 Tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon corn starch
½ teaspoon baking powder
6-10 Tablespoons ice water

For the filling:
2 cups-ish diced turkey (or chicken)
1 medium carrot
2-3 celery stalks
1 leek
¼ cup frozen peas
2-3 garlic cloves
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley
2 cups chicken milk (huh?)
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

So, the first thing you’ll need to do is make the crust.  It needs to chill for at least an hour before you can roll it out.  I made it the night before.  So, I have a confession.  I’ve never actually made a pie crust.  A crumb crust, sure.  A shortbread crust, of course.  But a fat and flour, rolled out crust, nope.  Sad, I know, but the pie crust horror stories have always scared me away.  Well, this time I decided I was going all in.  So, if you’ve never made a crust, you can learn along with me.  First, whisk together your dry ingredients.

Next, cut your cold butter into little cubes. 

Now comes the hard part, unless you have a food processor, which I don’t.  I haven’t yet bought a pastry blender, either, so I decided to go with the ‘two knives’ method of cutting in. 

Yeah, that was a mistake, but my mom said that’s how she used to do it.  I even watched a youtube video that made it look easy enough.  Pfft... yeah right!  Basically, you just cross two butter knives in a cutting motion.  When my arms started getting tired, I thought maybe putting a damp towel under the bowl would help with the process. 

Well, it did help to keep the bowl still, but I needed more help than that.  When my arms were about to fall off, and the mixture looked like this…

I decided to just dive in with my fingers and rub the flour in.  I know, I know, touching the butter will warm it up and make the crust tough… whatever.  In no time the mixture was ready.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you should use this method.  I'm suggesting, if you don't have a food processor, you should definitely get a pastry blender.  I had one before the move, and I'm sure it was less than $10.  Anyway, the mixture should be sort of crumbly, and the butter should be pea sized, or thereabouts. 

Now it’s time for the water.  It should be ice cold.  Add it 1 Tablespoon at a time, and sort of just fold it in. 

You’re looking for a consistency about like this.

I know it looks dry, but you’ll know it’s ready if you can squeeze a handful of it and it stays together.

Divide the dough in half and form two discs, then place them inside ziplock bags.  Place them in the fridge for an hour, or overnight. 

When you’re ready, start chopping your veggies for the filling.  I assume you can figure out how to dice the carrot and celery and mince the garlic, but a lot of people don’t often use leeks.  Leeks are basically like giant green onions.  They have lots of layers.  Dirt like’s to find its way between them, see?

Cut the leek into quarters, about ¾ of the way up the stalk.  Leave the green part whole to keep everything together, then run water between all of the layers to get out any sand or dirt.  See, nice and clean. 

Then just chop it up.  You’ll only want to use the white and light green parts. 

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, and dump in the veg minus garlic. 

Sprinkle over ½ teaspoon of salt, stir and cook over medium heat.  When the veggies are nice and sweaty, add the garlic.

Yes, there are little specks of green in my garlic.  My cloves had little sprouts starting, but no problem.  I’ve never noticed any difference in the flavor.  Continue to cook the mixture until most of the moisture has cooked off, then add the frozen peas, turkey, and parsley. 

Stir them together for just a minute, then put them in a bowl and set them aside.  Time for the sauce.  Remember that ½ stick of butter you have left from making the pie crust?  Here’s where it goes.  Throw it into the pan and allow it to melt completely.

Sprinkle over ¼ cup of flour. 

Stir that in and continue stirring while it cooks for about 3 minutes.  Now is also a good time to add the rest of the salt, and a good sprinkling of pepper. 

Now is where you should add the chicken milk.  That just sounds wrong.  I used 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 cup of milk, but you can use any ratio of those you’d like, just so it come out to 2 cups of liquid.  I said ‘should’ because, if your brain is out to lunch like mine was, you’ll just dump in the vegetable mixture, instead of the liquid. 

Oh well, no big deal.  Either way, just pour in the chicken milk and stir until it comes to a boil.  In the end, you should end up with a vegetable and sauce mixture that is nice and thick. 

Now’s probably a good time to preheat your oven to 375°.  Then pull your first piece of dough out and place it on a well floured surface.  Sprinkle flour over the dough, as well.

Now, if I had made a pie crust before, I probably would have pulled it out of the fridge for about 10 minutes before I started to roll it out.  It ended up, well… 

Yeah, I know, it’s a wreck.  But even if yours looks like this, I promise it will be ok in the end.  Just roll it onto your rolling pin so you can transfer it to the pie plate. 

There, you can patch any cracks and make whatever repairs are necessary.  Surprisingly, mine actually worked out fairly well once it was placed in the pan.  Be careful not to stretch the dough when you shape it to the pan.  Supposedly that will make it shrink when it’s cooked.  Now, roll out your second piece of dough. 

See, a few minutes to warm up just a bit, was definitely a good plan.  This one is much more acceptable.  So, when that’s ready, pour your filling into the bottom pie crust. 

Roll your second pie crust around the rolling pin like you did the first, and place it carefully on top of the pie. 

If you have lots of excess in places, you can trim it a bit with scissors. 

Then just press both layers together and fold them under. 

I then went around the edge and did a crimp kind of thing.  Not entirely necessary, but I was really trying to make up for that first crust disaster.

Make a few slits in the top for steam to escape.

Then onto a sheet pan and into the oven.  Bake at 375° for 45 – 60 minutes, or until the crust is just starting to brown. 

I’m thinking brushing the crust with melted butter, milk, or egg wash would have made it brown better, but you know, hind sight and all that.  Besides, I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt.  Now, your house is going to be smelling really good, and it’ll be hard, but you must let the pie rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting it.

I’ll be honest, I was beginning to wonder if all that work was really worth it.  But then I took a bite.  Oh my.  Never have I had any pot pie that was so delicious.  The crust was flaky, but sturdy enough to stand up to a savory pie, the turkey was moist and tender, and the vegetables were cooked to perfection.  And that sauce… I’m salivating just thinking about it now.  Absolutely to die for. 

So there you go, Angel.  Turkey pot pie, just for you!  I hope it meets your expectations.

Cinnamon (Biscuit) Buns

The limit of biscuits as possibilities approach infinity is infinity. (calculus version)

You can make a lot of things with biscuits. (normal human version)

No, I will never be done doing calculus. I have at least 3 more semesters of it.

That's three more semesters of needing breakfasts on the go in the morning. And biscuits, in addition to being infinitely variable, are also highly portable.

This recipe, like most biscuit recipes, will also impress your brunch or overnight guests. They take about 10 minutes to prepare and 20 to bake, so it's very easy to have them made and on the table before anyone even realizes you're up.

So, we start with the basic biscuit recipe, just like we did when we were impressing Southern Boys, but we make a couple modifications. Instead of milk, or buttermilk, I used half orange juice and half milk. The OJ is a lovely background aroma that could totally be emphasized if you added a bit of orange zest to the cinnamon-butter mixture... but that's a few steps away still.

Cinnamon (Biscuit) Buns

What you need:

Biscuits:

• ½ c orange juice
• ½ c milk
• ½ c butter
• 1 c flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp vanilla (optional)

Cinnamon Filling:

• 1/4 c butter
• 1/4 c cinnamon sugar
• 1/2 tsp orange zest (optional)

What you gotta do:

So, just like last time, we start with cold butter, chopped into chunks, and flour, baking powder and salt (forgot to put the salt in the ingredients pic) in a bowl.

With a pastry cutter, or two knives, or, even two forks, chop the butter into smaller and smaller pieces until it looks more like crumbs than butter and flour.

In a measuring cup, combine the OJ and milk (and vanilla... I realized as I was eating the first one that a bit of vanilla would totally be awesome)

If you don't have oranges on hand to freshly squeeze, make sure you're using the "not from concentrate" kind of OJ. The concentrated stuff is often stripped of vitamins during the concentration process and reconstituted with a higher sugar content.

You could also use plain milk, buttermilk, or all OJ if you wanted. Just make sure you've got a cup of liquid and it's got some kind of acid content to react with the baking powder to fluff up your biscuits.

Mix the liquid into the flour-butter crumbs to get a soft, sticky dough.

My dough was very soft and sticky when I turned it out onto a very floured counter. Soft, sticky doughs make for sticky, doughy hands that are not good for taking pictures.

So, I floured and folded the dough (remember to only pat and fold biscuits, never knead them) until it was rollable.

Roll the folded rectangle into a flat rectangle. This was a seriously sticky dough and I needed a lot of flour. I also need a rolling pin, because a tumbler is not the best tool for rolling biscuit dough.

You want the dough only about a half inch thick.

See where it looks like it's kinda stuck to the counter? It was. Not enough flour. But, a butter knife works well to lift the stuck bits as you're rolling. And I happened to have a butter knife handy...

You want the butter for the filling to be nice and soft. Of course, my pound of butter was all cold (cold butter for biscuits, always) so I microwaved it for a few seconds... too long. Oops. Oh well, butter will harden again in the fridge.

So, I just poured in the cinnamon sugar,

and put it in the fridge for a few minutes until its consistency was more spreadable and less pourable.

Spread this sweet, cinnamony goo all over the biscuit dough.

And start rolling. Lift the stuck bits gently with the knife, and use floured hands so you don't stick to the dough.

Don't worry if it's not pretty and smooth. Baking does wonderful things to the appearance of dough.

Once it's all rolled up and floured, slice it into pieces that are 1 or 1.5 inches thick.

Use a sharp knife, but don't worry that the roll flattens. And it will flatten. Not a problem. Seriously.

Line a pan (or two) with parchment and reshape your biscuits as you put them in the pan(s). Leave a bit of space between them. They totally puff outwards because of all the folding and layering you did before you rolled them out.

See, they're round again. And in a 400 degree oven, holy crap do they get puffy fast.

That was after only 4 minutes!

After about 18, they look like this

Just barely golden brown on the edges, and the OJ has given them a nice yellowy, buttery look.

Once they've cooled, you can wrap them in pairs and freeze them for early morning grabbing.

If you wanted to go totally crazy with these, you could glaze them. OJ and icing sugar, or cream cheese and icing sugar would work just fine. Or you could put one on a plate and grab a cup of coffee and a good book and get back into bed.

What do you take in your coffee?