Thanksgiving Leftovers Pot Pie
If you are like us, you make more food than you can eat for Thanksgiving. Even though leftovers are part of the holiday, a couple of days of them and you are ready for a change. That's where we are now. There is still a container full of turkey that needs to be eaten or used up and a few roasted vegetables.
So, this pot pie will use up most of that turkey and the roasted veggies, you just need a few fresh ingredients to turn it all into a new dish, all cooked in one pan which makes it easy to prepare and the only dishes to wash up are the ones you just emptied of the leftovers. You can prepare this in a casserole dish, but I opt for my trusty cast iron skillet, which I will use anyway to prep some of the veggies. The topping is a quick cornbread recipe, so no need to make any more pie dough, unless you prefer a pie crust top. If you have leftover stuffing, you could use that up by topping it and pouring a little melted butter over it before baking to help crisp it up a bit. After all, most of the pot pie is already cooked, you are simply heating it through. If you have leftover vegetables, you can simply reheat 6 cups of the vegetables in the skillet, if not follow the steps in the recipe below.
Cooking for any holiday makes me think about Grandmaw Barton. We had so many family holiday meals at her house. I've said before that I have no idea how she cooked all that food herself. We showed up and the food was ready. As we walked in the door, she would be ready for mom to make the instant mashed potatoes. Yes, I said instant. With all her wonderful food that took hours to prepare, the last thing was the instant mashed potatoes and then homemade turkey gravy to go over them. As mom boiled the water, grandmaw made the gravy. I may have mentioned it before, but we never let mom live down the year that we had to pour the mashed potatoes over the gravy because they were so runny! When cooking that much food, you have to resign yourself to the fact that something is not going to come out right. You can either let it ruin the whole meal, or accept that we will talk about you and the disaster you made for years to come. Being able to laugh at yourself is a whole lot better than spoiling the opportunity to make lasting family memories. For all the perfect homemade mashed potatoes I have made myself, I would trade them all for one more spoonful of mom's runny instant from that year.
We have recently been looking for a new stove, trying to figure out if we want to convert to gas or upgrade to an induction cooktop. If you have experience with both, please let me know. Because our phones seem to read our minds and listen to our conversations, a variety of ranges have been showing up in my feed, but there was one that caught my eye. Our local Facebook Marketplace showed me a picture of a GE Stove from the 60's and to be honest, if I had the room for it, that would be my new stove. It is the exact same as the one my grandmother had. I remember mom telling me that she and dad bought it new, but when they got their first house in 1969, it came with new appliances and they did not need it, so they either gave it or sold it to my grandmother. I loved it because it had push buttons to turn the stove eye's on. As soon as I was tall enough to reach them, I always wanted to turn the burners on or off. All of us were probably hollered at often for trying to touch them when we weren't supposed to.
Grandmaw's stove cooked family meals for more than 30 people for nearly 30 years. If I had the room, I would give double that to buy this and use it for the next 30 years.
Then yesterday, I saw a post in my feed of a sink that matched her's too! It was like someone was giving me flashbacks to growing up. I spent hours in that kitchen. Even as I got older and spent a couple of weeks at her house in the summer, and visited on up into my 30's, most of our time was spent in the kitchen as she cooked or we just sat around talking. Uncle Lester would stop in every morning and every afternoon on his way to and from work. Grandmaw would have his water ready for coffee and his gold FireKing cup and saucer. He would pour his coffee from the cup into the saucer and sip from it. I had never seen anyone do that before or since, except once in a movie. He said it would cool quicker that way and he could get on to work, which was right around the corner from her house.
Just to the left of her sink, the old water pump was still there when I was little. At some point Uncle Lester helped update her kitchen with paneling and wallpaper and they closed in the space where the pump was. She still had one in the garage at the front of her property. I can't imagine how many dishes were washed in that sink. Now the house is gone, so seeing these pics brings back so many memories.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Pot Pie
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons turkey fat (if leftover, otherwise use vegetable or olive oil)
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 cups diced sweet potato
- 2 cups diced carrots
- 2 cups diced potatoes
- 3 cups cooked diced turkey
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 cups turkey broth (if leftover, otherwise use 2 cups canned chicken or turkey broth)
- 1 teaspoon rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup self-rising cornmeal - white or yellow
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- dash salt
- 4 tablespoons browned butter (instructions to the right)
- 2-3 cups of leftover stuffing
- 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) melted butter
- Directions:
- Spread stuffing evenly over filling, then pour melted butter evenly over the top. Use extra butter if preferred. Bake at 325 degrees until the top becomes crusty.
- You can make this a turkey shepherd's pie by using leftover mashed potatoes too.
- 2-3 cups of leftover mashed potatoes
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- Directions:
- Warm mashed potatoes so you can spread them over the filling evenly. Pour melted butter over it and bake at 325 degrees until golden brown.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425.
- In a 12 inch cast iron skillet, saute', on a med-high heat, the onion, sweet potato and carrots in the turkey fat. Let cook about 5 minutes and then add the potatoes and turkey broth. Reduce to medium heat and cook until the sweet potatoes start to become tender, about 10 minutes. Dice the turkey and sprinkle with the flour to coat and add to the pan. Add the rosemary, thyme, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Let cook about 5 min more or until broth thickens. Remove from heat.
- For the cornbread topping, begin by browning the butter in a microwave safe 2 cup or larger measuring cup. Simply cook on high for 3 minutes. It will be hot, so remove carefully. Combine the cornmeal, buttermilk, egg, and salt and stir to mix completely. Add 2 tablespoons of the browned butter and stir. Pour cornbread batter over top of the pot pie filling, spreading carefully to cover most or all of the filling. Pour the rest of the browned butter, dark bits and all, over the batter.
- Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cornbread is lightly browned, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to catch anything that may bubble over. Remove from oven and let it rest for 3-4 minutes before spooning out and serving.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
1145.92Fat (grams)
61.65Sat. Fat (grams)
26.84Carbs (grams)
104.39Fiber (grams)
11.23Net carbs
93.15Sugar (grams)
16.31Protein (grams)
45.43Sodium (milligrams)
2300.17Cholesterol (grams)
238.33
