So, there's no questioning that when you're unemployed, you have to be as frugal as possible. Hence, using leftovers and a couple of things you find on sale.
I was walking through Albertsons the other day and I saw cans of Campbell's Chunky Sirloin Burger soup on sale-- three for $5. Deal? You might say. If used wisely. Then I found all the premade pie crust displayed from the holidays (guess they were trying to move it ASAP). I thought about the Pillsbury brand, but again, let's go cheap. We have pennies to pinch. $3.59 for the Albertson's brand pie crust. No fuss with any butter, ice water, and rolling. Just unroll, mold, and bake!
Luckily for me, I didn't end up making this last week, because this week, we so happened to have leftover mashed potatoes from the other day. And if you don't have any on hand, just pick out all the potatoes from the soup and mash them. Actually, that might be best, because there are quite a lot of potatoes in there. Also, lucky for me, I just so happened to be talking on the phone with a friend of mine who made the shepherd's pie suggestion, because, before our conversation, this would have been a meat pot pie. So, lucky for you too, if you try making this. It's actually really yummy! Besides, I didn't make the filling. I just put everything together and so can you.
Here it goes...you will need: ...and this yields exactly 3 mini pies or you can try making one big 9" pie. But I'm basing this on three mini ones.
1 box Albertson's brand pie crust
2 cans Campbell's Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup
1 russet potato, mashed or leftover mash (about 2 Tablespoons per pie)
1 egg, beaten for eggwash
(1) Roll out the dough and cut out a circle at the edge of the pie crust using the larger part of the pie tin as your stencil (make sure to cut about an inch out --larger than the large part of the tin). Be sure to start at the edge, so you can use as much of the dough as possible. We do not want any of this to go to waste now, would we?!
(2) Line the pie tin with the crust. **if the pie crust is in smaller pieces, now that you've cut some pieces out, do not attempt to ball the dough up and re-roll it. Just piece it together and use it for the bottom part of the pie. Pie dough tends to get tougher the more you mess with it...just piece it together and press it into the pie tin.
(3) Piece together any excess and cut out an exact piece of your top and set aside.
(4) Spoon the mashed potato into the bottom of the pie. Then carefully select the meat and vegetables and spoon those into the pie as well. Avoid pouring--you will end up with too much liquid and no meat; or mostly veggies and no meat. After it is full of filling, you can spoon some liquid in to fill up any gaps--try not to overfill.
(5) Brush a little eggwash onto the rim of the pie. Add on the top part that you have set aside and with seal the edges with a fork. Cut off any excess dough with a small table or paring knife. (Don't throw out any dough just yet).
(6) Eggwash the top and with the point of the knife, make a little "x" in the center for any steam to come out.
(7) Bake at 350 F for about 20-25 minutes. Rotate halfway if you have a convection oven (oven with a fan going). You'll know that it's done when the crust looks not only golden, but the dough doesn't look like it has see-through oil stains on it. That just means the dough is still a bit raw. If it still looks like it's raw, just keep it in the oven for another 2-3 minutes and you should be good.
**what do we do with the excess pie dough? Just bake it off, because I'm betting that you probably have a little leftover soup if you made the little ones.
Had some pie with a little kale soup...but that recipe's for another day.