Sick Day Comfort Food

I had some extra roast from dinner last Sunday, as well as some root veggies. I was home sick Tuesday and comfort food sounded good. I decided to make some beef pot pies. I looked at a few recipes. One in Barefoot Contessa, as well as one in Bon Appetit's Quick Easy Fresh cookbook and finally perused the Lion House cookbook. From there I took the best from all three and came up with my own version for dinner.



Dan's Beef Pot Pie

2 C cooked, diced pot roast or steak
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 C diced potato
1 C diced carrot
½ C diced celery
½ C red wine
2 & ½ C beef stock
¼ C cream or half & half
2T butter
2T flour
Sea salt
Pepper
2 bay leaves
Fresh herbs
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Puff Pastry, defrosted
1 egg

Preheat oven to 415 degrees.

In a large sauce pan sauté diced onion and bay leaves in a splash of olive oil until tender. Add chopped potato, celery, carrot and garlic. Sauté for three minutes. Add wine and stock and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 6 to 10 minutes. Make a slurry by mixing the butter and flour together with a fork. Stir that into the vegetable stock mixture until it thickens. You may need to add more to get to desired consistency. If too thick, thin with more stock. Add salt and pepper to taste, fresh herbs and cayenne. I used some rosemary and oregano from our herb garden, and also used some dried marjoram. Add cream and mix in diced cooked roast.

Spoon pot pie mixture into several small pie tins, about six to eight total. Roll out defrosted puff pastry. Cut out circles in puff pastry large enough to cover pie tins. Gently secure to edge of pie tin by pressing down edge of pastry with your finger. Make a quick egg wash by whisking the egg with a splash of cream. Brush the pastry with the egg wash, sprinkle tops of crusts with sea salt and fresh black pepper. Poke three steam vents into each crust.

Bake 20-25 minutes until crust is golden brown, puffed.