The drop in temperatures outside has made it perfect for turning on the oven.  One of my favorite cold weather, comfort food meals is a pot pie.  Who doesn’t have memories of them from childhood?  Little boxes pulled from the freezer, mini pies baking on a tray and a bowl of gravy to dunk biscuits in?  Certainly not a healthy meal when you stop to think about it and that is precisely why you should make your own.  While a pie crust is the traditional topping for a pot pie, the use of a mashed potato topping has less fat and more fiber but even so, this isn’t something you should eat regularly.

To keep it a little healthier, try to put a rainbow in the mix; use lots of hard vegetables of many colors in the filling.  To help keep vegetables such as broccoli from turning to mush, add them to the filling raw and allow them to cook as the pie bakes.

Boil the potatoes and mash them with a small amount of butter and use lowfat milk or even soy milk to keep it lean.  My mixture contained a single egg yolk which I am thinking could probably be omitted without consequence.

This is one of those dishes that can be cobbled together with leftovers.  We had a previously roasted chicken in the fridge and I simply chopped the breast meat from half of it to make the filling.  However, you could easily make this with turkey or any other meat, even a steak or a loin roast and for those of you who prefer it to be meat free, just double the veggies.

The filling was made with vegetable broth because that is what I had handy and to thicken it, I added a small amount of flour.  Mix and match to your heart’s content, I know I will be making this again, and who knows what will end up in it-depends on what is in the fridge!