Veggie & Cheese Pot Pie

Since I've started this blog, I've reacquanted myself with many of the dishes I used to cook.  I suppose we all get into these grooves throughout our lives where we are doing the same sorts of things, hanging out with the same people, cooking the same food regularly.  Then something changes, and it gets shaken up, but then you fall into a groove again, a new one.

A few years ago I was living on my own in a tiny studio apartment in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with a kitchen that was barely a kitchen, and I had to make do with my tiny fridge, very little storage space, and my insanely tight budget.  A few years before that, I was living in a 2000-square-foot house with a huge kitchen with an island and a skylight, and even though my budget then was also tight, I had a different set of recipes I cooked then than what I regularly cooked in my tiny studio.  When I moved out of that studio apartment to trek halfway across the country to Colorado, and moved into a period of my life in which I was now married, living with a somewhat old and broken-down kitchen, and with a better budget but much less energy for cooking since I gradually went from relatively healthy to very very ill, the set of dishes I cooked on a regular basis changed again.

Occasionally I'll make something that I have cooked over and over again in my life, and Dan will say to me that I have never made that for him.  There are many, many things I used to cook all the time that I have just fallen out of the habit of cooking.  One of those is pot pie.

My homemade pot pie is sortof a semi-homemade (a la Ms. Lee) recipe.  I use canned soup and frozen veggies.  But, you'd be surprised at how good it is; plus, using the soup makes it so much easier than making a beschamel or something.  Here's how I do it:

(amounts are approximate; adjust to your tastes)
1/4 c. minced onion
1/2 stick butter
2 tbsp. milk
2 cans condensed cream of potato soup
2 cups frozen veggies (the basic cut veggie mix that has corn, carrots, peas, etc. in it)
salt, pepper to taste
 parsley, paprika, thyme (optional) to taste
4 oz. shredded or cubed cheddar or other cheese

Sautee minced onion in butter with a small pinch of salt until onions are translucent.  Add in the condensed soup (do not follow soup can directions; just add it in still condensed), 2 tbsp. milk, and frozen veggies, and mix well.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Not too much salt, as the soup is already salty.  Add seasoning if you want, to taste.  Heat the mixture just until it simmers, remove from heat, and stir in the cheese.  Pour the mixture into whatever dish you are using, after spraying the dish with nonstick spray or buttering it.  I usually just put it in a big casserole, but you can divide it into individual dishes, too.  Top it with whatever crust you are using, egg wash the crust if you want it shiny and golden (you don't have to, though), cut a few slits in the crust, and bake it at 350 until the crust is golden brown.  Time will vary based on the crust you're using and the dish it's in.

Crust:
Usually I make a homemade crust, but a Jiffy mix pie crust or other mix works fine, too.  However, for a homemade crust, it just takes flour, baking powder, salt, butter, water, and a food processor, so it's super easy.  This works for a quiche crust, too:  Put 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt into the processor and pulse just to mix.  Add 1/2 stick of very cold butter, cut into pieces, and pulse to mix just until it's barely mixed up.  You should still see bits of butter.  Then drizzle in about a teaspoon of water at a time while you pulse to just barely hydrate the mixture.  When the mixture is just barely past not being able to crumble anymore, you are done.  Then you can roll it out immediately, with plenty of flour to make sure it doesn't stick, or wrap it in plastic wrap and save it in the fridge to roll out later.

I have also made this pot pie with veggie chicken, but honestly, it's great with just the veggies and cheese. 

Happy eating!