Country Style Cheeseburger Veggie Pot Pie {Freezer Friendly}

This has been a highly eventful week! Pie In The Sky Week! I flew to LA...made some new and exciting big plans for an epic food storage cookbook with Honeyville...Awesome details to follow. 


 I've posted a lot of new food storage pie baking ideas and I know that by Friday of an amazing week...we need a freezer meal!  So... this one is for Auntie Em...who once asked me if I ever cook real people food. I'm real people...sometimes.  Here it is hun. At the end of a 12 hour pie making day on Monday, I decided to use some of the extra pie dough and make a country style cheeseburger veggie pot pie with ingredients I had on hand. It was devoured by my "vegetarian" husband (who in all honesty slips into the flexitarian category. ) He'll eat meat now and then...and this was a "then" moment.  He loved the pot pie! Loved it.  The kids drizzled it with ketchup...no comment.  As I can honestly say, I did call it a cheeseburger pot pie. There is no need for a pie pan in this case so the meat mixture is just nestled between two very crispy, flaky savory pie crust layers.  This dough actually uses seasoning in the dough. It's crazy good!

 Chef Stephanie Petersen's Standard Recipe for  Savory Pastry dough (using shortening)
Basic Pastry crust: 2 9 inch single shells or 1 9 inch two crust pie
2 1/4 cup pastry flour (for whole wheat pastry flour increase water to about 1/3 cup)
1/2 tsp salt, 
1 tsp Chef Tess All Purpose Seasoning
1 cup shortening (crisco works but if you want non trans-fat try "Spectrum" brand)
3T cold water
3T vinegar
Directions:
 1. Mix flour, salt and seasoning, cut in shortening with a pastry blender. 
2. Combine lightly until the mix resembles course meal or tiny peas: its texture will not be uniform, but will        contain small crumbs and small bits and pieces. 


3.Sprinkle water and vinegar over mixture one Tablespoon at a time and mix lightly with a fork, using only enough water so that the pastry will hold together when pressed gently into a ball. This will vary on the moisture content of the flour. Divide the dough into two balls. Roll each ball out into a circle ( see Pie Crust Tutorial for details on my technique)


Filling ingredients

 1 lb lean hamburger (2 cups freeze dried, hydrated with 2 cups hot water 10 minutes and drained well)
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/4 cup flour OR 2T Ultra gel
2 cups beef stock
1 clove pressed garlic
1 tsp Chef Tess All Purpose Seasoning
1 cup mixed vegetables (1/2 cup freeze dried mix rehydrated OR 1 cup frozen mixed veggies of your choice)
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese


To make filling:
In a deep skillet, cook the lean hamburger and  and onion until burger is cooked through. Add 1/4 cup flour stir well and cook 2 minutes. Add the stock all at once with the garlic and seasoning to the simmering beef. Stir until thick, about 5 minutes. Add Veggies and cook 2 more minutes.  

1. Take one piece of pie dough, rolled out in a 12 inch circle and place it on a sheet pan lined with non-stick foil.
2.  Pile the beef mixture into the center of the dough. Top the filling with the shredded cheese. 
3.  Top with second 12 inch circle of pie dough. 
4. Tightly roll the outside 1 inch of the pie crusts together and pinch well, sealing the meat mixture between the dough (Freeze: see directions below or Bake right away for dinner tonight).
5.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
6.  Prick a few holes in the top of the pie and bake 25-30 minutes.

 I sprinkled mine with some flaked salt and chives before baking.

 If freezing:

• Transfer the uncooked open air pie to the freezer and allow to freeze 2 hours.
•  Remove from the freezer and wrap tightly with plastic wrap or a Gallon size freezer bag.  
• To bake, Place unwrapped pie on a sheet pan and bake 45 minutes from frozen at 400 degrees. Serve hot.

There you go my dears! Make some pot pie at the end of pie week! I hope you've had as much fun with pie as I've had! Xoxo!


Get the printable version of this recipe Here

Always My Very Best,

Your Friend Chef Tess