Bravely Baking: Thanksgiving Hot Water Crust Pie

Ricky and I are celebrating our Thanksgiving early since he has to work on Turkey Day. We decided to make a meat pie filled with all the goodness of Thanksgiving. Now, since we were making this before Thanksgiving, we made all the food for the inside of the pie the night beforehand, but this is the ultimate way to use your leftovers from the big day as well!

We used turkey breast, stove top stuffing (yes, it's in a box, and yes it's my favorite - step off), gravy, and mashed potatoes. Like I said though, you do you, boo. What you got left over? Green bean casserole? Okay, throw it in there. Cranberry sauce? Done. Sweet potato casserole? I'm not mad at that.

Let me tell you about how we prepared our innards in case you are making this on a day that's not the day after Thanksgiving, like us. As I stated earlier, we made the innards the day before, and then we made the crust and assembled on the day of feasting.

For the Turkey:
2 pounds turkey breast? **We got an 8 pound turkey breast because that's what Aldi had, and it was a good sale. We used like 1/4 - 1/3 of the meat we had.**
Salt *a generous amount*
Pepper
Fresh Rosemary
A lemon (again,, this is if you have a whole on-bone turkey breast)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. If you got a giant turkey breast like us, still on the bone, pat dry and generously slather with olive oil. Salt and pepper the outside.
3. Fill the cavity of the bird with fresh rosemary and a lemon cut in half.
4. If you didn't buy a giant turkey breast, you can just oil, salt and pepper, and finely chop the rosemary and sprinkle it over the skin.
5. Bake the turkey for about 2 hours if you have 8 pounds of it.... but you're looking for it to be at an internal temp of 165F no matter what size you have. For a big guy like ours, we took it out at about 155F and let it rest up to the correct temperature, about 45 mins to an hour.

6. Once cooled enough to handle, cut into chunks. We put ours in the fridge overnight because I couldn't be bothered to make all of this AND the pie in one night.
7. If there's any juices in the pan, drain off into a mason jar and keep in the fridge for gravy tomorrow.

For the Gravy:
..... I used a packet of gravy mix. Don't judge me... There was a lot going on.

1 packet of gravy mix
Juices from your turkey + enough water to make 1 cup

1. Pour gravy packet and juices and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Allow to cook for about a minute, and then turn off until assembly. You can also jazz it up with any other spices you like.

For the Stuffing:
I'm not writing this out- buy a box of stuffing. Follow directions. You'll need butter.

For the Mashed Potatoes:
3 large-ish russet potatoes
1 c-ish whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter (shut up, it's Thanksgiving- these are free calories)
1/3 packet of ranch seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Peel potatoes and cut into 1 inch pieces (this just makes them cook faster). Put them in a pot with cold water (until covering potatoes) and add a lot of salt.
2. Bring to a boil and let cook until fork tender. Drain and set aside.
3. If you're us, we put the potatoes in the fridge once they were cooled and finished the mashing process the next day.
4. Put potatoes back in the pot and add milk, butter, and seasonings. *this is true whether you have cold potatoes or hot. **if they're cold, heat everything together until warm.
5. Mash with your favorite method. *We did a hand mixer so they were creamy.
6. Taste and add additional spices if need be.

For the Hot Water Crust:
I used the recipe I have used before from this Guinness meat and mushroom pie.

300 g unsalted butter (a little less than 3 sticks- 21.5 tablespoons)
1 1/3 c water
1 tsp salt
5 c all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Have a springform pan on deck. *I used a 9 inch, but I have also done this in an 8 inch springform.
2. Put water, salt, and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
3. While that's coming to a boil, but flour in a large heat-safe bowl and clean off your counter so that you can knead dough on it.
4. Once water mixture comes to a boil, make a well in flour and start to pour in, mixing as you go.
5. Once it is all combined, turn out onto counter.
6. Knead dough for about 10 - 15 minutes until it gets shiny and holds together better.

7. This is how it looks in the middle of the kneading process- see how it's still pulling apart?

8. Pull off about 1/3 of the dough and set aside for the top of the crust.
9. Roll out the larger piece so that it is big enough to cover the bottom and sides of the pan. *I kept grabbing my pan and seeing if it was large enough.

11. Transfer to the pan and press into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. It's okay if it falls apart a little- just shove it back together.

12. Roll out the top of the pie crust just so it's slightly bigger than the pan. Set aside.

Assembly:

1. Take prepared pan with dough in it. Add a layer of stuffing (or whatever you have).

2. Add second layer of goodness- for us it was turkey and gravy.

3. Add third layer- this was mashed potatoes for us.

4. If you got more stuff, keep adding.
5. Once done layering, add the top pie crust. Tear off excess and press top crust into the side crust to form a seal. Don't press it over the pan, otherwise you'll destroy it when trying to get it out of the pan.

6. In a small bowl, take an egg and beat it with a splash of water. Brush onto the top of the crust. This will help browning. If you don't have an egg, you can also do this with milk or heavy cream.
7. Cut slits in the top for venting. Bake for about 50 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.