Deer Pot Pie

 

The other day I was picking out soup to buy at Safeway and noticed a recipe for beef pot pies on a can of Campbells soup.  I love pot pies and it seemed super easy.  I've always been intimidated by the pie crust aspect of making a pot pie, and did not know, as it said in the recipe, that you could get them pre made for pot pies. So I bought a couple pre made pie crusts, and some small 'pot pie-sized' glass dishes and went home.

At home I googled pot pie recipes and came up with one that I thought would work with my canned deer meat. Click here for my elaborate canned deer recipe.  This winter when I canned deer meat I simply browned the meat and added carrots and leeks to the jars with a little beef broth. In any case, I have a great many jars of canned deer and elk meat.  So I thought a pot pie recipe that used my canned meat would make for some easy tasty meals in the future.  

Unlike the recipe on the soup can I decided not to use the condensed soup as a base.  Instead I mixed a couple of table spoons of corn starch into cold water for a thickening agent.  I basically followed this recipe from the internet (click here), but adapted it to use canned deer. I made it once just for me (pictures in this post), and it was so good that I made it again a few days later for Stuey (no pictures).  The second time I made it I did a few tweeks - like adding my own garden carrots and a little bit of Campbells 'condensed golden mushroom soup' (click here for recipe from the Campbells soup can)

What's amazing is that from start to finish it took less than an hour to make and there is no need to de frost anything from the freezer!

Here is my recipe - I did not measure out the ingredients but they are close to what I came up with below.  Also I did find that 1 pint jar made 2 pies just about perfectly.  Then when I made it for Stuey I used a 1 pint jar and added another 1/2 pint jar and it made 3 pies just about perfectly. I included links to all the recipes I looked at because I think it is a good idea to mix and match, and you may want to do it slightly differently.

Ingredients - 

1 pint jar of canned deer meet for 2 pies 

1 cup of frozen peas

1/2 cup of frozen corn

1 cup chopped fresh carrots

1/2 cup of chopped celery

2-3 tablespoons of corn starch

1/2 cup of water

dash of thyme

salt and pepper 

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce

1 Pillsbury read made pie crust (from refrigerated section at Safeway)

1 tablespoon oil

1 1/2 tablespoons of Campbells condensed golden mushroom soup (I did it for the mushroom flavor)

Method:

1) In a sauce pan I added the chopped carrots and celery and browned them in the oil for a few minutes.

2) Added jar of canned meat and its gelatinous meat sauce to the browning vegetables, and broke up all the meat chunks with a fork and butter knife.  

3) Added the corn starch to a glass with the cold water and condensed golden mushroom soup base, and stirred it all up.

4) Heated the sauce pan until meat, carrots and celery were simmering and then added the corn starch, water and soup base to the mix.  This should thicken it all up.

5) Added all the frozen vegetables to the simmering mix and stirred it all up.

6) Added Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and a dash of thyme.

7) Spooned the pot pie mix into the small pie dishes and cut the pie crust to shape to fit over the tops. I found that one pie crust could cover 3 small pot pies but that I had to use multiple strips.

8) Put the pies on a pie sheet and put into oven pre heated at 350 degrees.

9) Bake for 45 minutes or less - until the tops are golden brown.

10) take them out of oven and enjoy!

Post script: The last time I cooked this instead of corn starch I tried flour.  I browned the flour with the carrots and celery.  I think this tasted better than the corn starch. And I used dried mushrooms that I re hydrated in water - I used this instead of the 1/2 cup of water.