The many facets of pot pie

Growing up, the only kind of pot pie I ever knew was the frozen, individually packaged kind. I'm sure we didn't eat them that often, but I feel like there was always a supply in the freezer for those nights no one felt like cooking. The fact is, I was never a big fan.

The reason? In a word: pastry.

Let's face it, pot pies are all about the pastry, otherwise they would just be stew. And the pastry on the pre-fab pot pies from the freezer case was essentially flavourless with a not-great texture.

When making pot pie at home, there are a couple of pastry options to consider: Single-crust or double-crust? Regular pie crust or puff pastry? But the choices don't end there. There's the question of individual portions vs. one large pie, and what exactly goes in the filling. (I once made a quite successful pot pie using leftover coq au vin.) There are so many variables to pot pie that it would be hard to ever become completely bored with it.

The night before last, we had individually portioned, single puff pastry-crusted, classic chicken pot pies. The recipe was from Anita Stewart's The Flavours of Canada, and it hit the spot on a chilly winter's evening. (Full disclosure: I used frozen, store-bought puff pastry, so the dish wasn't entirely "from scratch." It's been a long time since I made my own puff pastry, but I've been thinking about doing it again soon...)

My digital camera is currently on life support, which isn't a huge deal because it wasn't that great a camera to begin with. For a variety of reasons, I won't be able to buy a new one until at least April. I've decided that it doesn't make sense to stop posting altogether just because I can't post pictures but, well, I won't be posting any pictures in the near future.