Turkey Pie

We recently found ourselves with a large quantity of leftover turkey meat and broth with Thanksgiving fast approaching and threatening an expansion of inventory.  I've done a great job with turkey noodle soup and turkey rice soup (IMHO) but our newfound riches led me to think about trying turkey pie.  My first attempt using broth, turkey meat, a few veg, and a Bisquick top crust was OK but not great and not quite what I had in mind - kinda runny and not quite the veg mix I had imagined.  Brunch at the Standard Tap with Jo provided an opportunity to sample their chicken pie and get an idea from Jo how they make it.   Theirs - puff pastry crust and mostly meat with limited veg - is not quite what I had in mind for mine but it gave me some ideas on how to proceed.  So today I tried Round 2:

1 cup concentrated (2/1) turkey broth
1/2 cup water
2 T. lemon juice
1/2 onion minced pretty fine
1 sm + 1 med clove garlic, minced
2 smallish carrots in chunks ~1/2 inch
1 medium potato in small cubes, 3/8 - 1/2 inch
12 oz turkey meat, shredded for soup
2 oz frozen yellow beans
2 oz frozen corn (~1/2 c.)
2 oz frozen peas (~1/2 c.)
2 oz mushrooms, chopped course (~1/2 inch)
1/4 t. ground mustard
1 bay leaf
1 T. dried basil
1/2 t. dill seed
1/2 t. celery seed
Celery leaves form the garden, chopped
Parsley from the garden, one handfull chopped
Lovage from the garden, leaves from one sprig, chopped
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper, some
Dried chili pepper, a smidge (not enough to taste, just enough to add interest)

Put this all together and cook it like making soup until the carrots and potatoes are cooked through.  Add water as needed to maintain minimal broth but over the top of the turkey and veg.  At the end, reduce to minimal broth.

In a separate pan, I made a roux using coconut oil and flour, removed the filling from the heat, poured off the remaining broth into the roux, and whisked into a gravy which I added back to the filling.  After mixing, I turned this out into a 10" glass pie dish.

Last time I thought the Bisquick crust was a little sweet, and sure enough, they list sugar in the ingredients list, so I decided it was time to try biscuits from scratch without the sugar.  I followed the recipe from the New York Times Cookbook:
2 cup flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/3 cup shortening ( I used 2/1 coconut oil/butter)
~2/3 c. milk ( I needed a little more to fully wet my whole batch)
I added 1 T. dried Thyme to the dry ingredients after cutting in the shortening

Dries mixed, shortening cut in, milk added with stirring, turned out on floured board, kneaded a little bit, then rolled out thin (<1/2 inch) to cover pie dish with thin biscuit crust.

Preheat oven to 425 F, bake crust/heat pie 12-15 min, until crust is brown.

I had a little extra biscuit dough which I baked up as biscuits just to see how they turned out; it was my first attempt at biscuits from scratch.  They rose and browned nicely.  The addition of thyme was excellent.  As biscuits they were a little salty; World of Baking uses 1/2 t. salt for 2 c. flour in the biscuit recipe.  As a savory pie crust, the extra salt was not a problem.

This pie turned out very well.  It cut and served in slices which held together and did not run, which was one of my objectives.  I liked the meat/veg ratio but it would also work with a little less meat, I think; I will probably try this next time.  Seasonings as listed worked out very well, but this is obviously a place to add variety in the future.

I am happy to say that this experiment was a great success.  I am particularly pleased to be launched into the world of "from scratch" biscuits and no longer tied to the Bisquick box!  This is good start on biscuits but I will have to look into variations/improvements for future sausage gravy and biscuit breakfasts.