There are few activities that I enjoy more than spending a lazy Sunday afternoon in the kitchen with Jeremy. With guaranteed companionship/help with the dishes, Sundays are when I dive into the more time-consuming recipes (read: anything that requires me to make a pie crust or roll out dough).

When it comes to pies in general, I’ve been told (in a whisper)–by several of the good cooks in my life–that store-bough crusts are fine. It turns out, that’s not a lie: Store-bought crusts are fine. Homemade crusts, however, are AMAZING. So, if I’ve got some extra time on my hands, I never regret putting in the effort. For me, the hardest part of making a crust is rolling the dough thin enough, and making that thinness uniform. My crusts have historically been too thick, but, a couple of years ago, I discovered the magic of a lightly floured pastry cloth, which makes rolling out any kind of dough dramatically easier.

Once the crust is out of the way, pot pies are really, really easy. Jeremy and I had a ton of frozen vegetables in the freezer, so we cooked them with a few leftover potatoes and sweet potatoes from last week’s CSA share, and mixed in some vegetable gravy. I’m vegan and Jeremy isn’t, so we decided to make mini-pot pies with seitan for me and chicken/turkey sausage and cheese for him. They were delicious, and, as an added bonus, I got to use my new mini-pepper casserole dishes!

As an afterthought, I also made tarts using leftover pie crust.

**If you click through a link to Amazon.com in this post, I will make a little money if you make a purchase. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.**