Pot Pie

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Also, remove ready-to-use pie crust from the refrigerator, as it should come to room temperature for about 30 minutes before using it. This keeps it from cracking when you unroll it.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and celery to the pan and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes. Mix flour and spices in a bowl and then add the mixture to the skillet and stir to evenly combine with butter, onions and celery. Cook for 1 minute. This will create a roux that will thicken your sauce.

Very slowly add chicken broth to the skillet while constantly stirring to prevent the flour from clumping. Once all of the chicken broth is incorporated with the flour mixture, bring sauce to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Finally, remove from heat and slowly stir in half-and-half.

Stir leftover chicken or turkey and thawed frozen mixed vegetables into the pot pie sauce.

Lightly grease a 9-inch pie plate with butter. Gently place pie crusts into the pie plate and lightly press on the crust so that it is formed to the shape of the pan. Pour the pot pie filling into the pie pan and evenly spread out around the pan.

Gently unroll remaining pie crust over the top of the pie. Trim excess dough from around the edges of the pan and press the edges together around the circumference of the pie with your fingers. Cut 4 one-inch slits in the middle of the pie to release steam during cooking. Beat egg in a small bowl and paint a light layer over the top pie crust (there will be egg that you don’t use).

Bake in 425ºF oven for 45–55 minutes, or until pie is bubbling and crust is golden brown. To prevent the edges of the pot pie from burning, consider covering them with aluminum foil or a silicon pie crust shield. Let pie sit for 10 minutes before serving.