Pot Pies

The Texas summer has been unbearable this year, the heat has almost taken my breath away. So who feels like cooking? Not me. 

Our outdoor grill served us well during these uncomfortable days. I’ve avoided turning on the oven, the air conditioner works hard enough. But that all  changed yesterday when I found three little Banquet Pot Pies in the freezer.

Lucky, two were beef pies. Oh, you remember, James doesn’t like chicken. Nobody’s gonna throw this guy under the chicken bus. Beef. Pork. Beef. Pork. There will be none of those legs and wings touching his plate–where’s the other white meat? Aw, okay, he’ll eat it if, 1) I don’t tell him ahead of time what he’s eating for supper, and 2) it only shows up once every three months, and 3) he’s a real hungry hombre. Pork, Beef–How easy is that?

And how easy is this: Tear open box, remove pies, place on cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes. There’s a microwave version, but I like them oven-baked.

While those little pies heated, I threw together a salad reminiscent of days before the garden burned in this sizzling sun–when I cropped fresh spinach and lettuce from the dirt and tossed it with homegrown parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes and onion slices. The nice little side reminded me there are cooler days ahead.

I’ve bought lots of brands of pot pies, some pricy enough that I thought, maybe they’re the best. Not so. I keep coming back to Banquet Pot Pies with their top crust and bottom. I keep a few for stand-by’s in my freezer for occasions, like last night, when I didn’t want to cook but the time has come for something hot.

(BTW, if you’re wondering, this is purely my opinion and not any kind of advertisement for Banquet food products.)

I’ve reasoned that James has hated chicken since he was a kid. Doesn’t everything stem from our youth? From when his family owned a mean, angry,  rooster who would sit and wait and watch his territory–the same territory that included the school bus stop sealed off between two barbed wire fences before it reached the house.

That rooster would wait for James and his brother to step off the bus. He’d scratch the dirt, squat with his red head stretched forward, and fly toward them in a flurry of feathers. Getting home from school became a daily adventure of terror: the squawking, the gloating, the hustle. It never ended good.

That mean-spirited bird would jump on their backs like a five-pound mosquito, to dig his sharp spurs into their sweaty little bodies of flaring arms and legs. Until, that is, he met the end of his daddy’s pointy boot. Man, did that rooster fly! All the kids on the school bus cheered.

But daddy’s boot wasn’t always available, and one day that stringy bird ended up the star of the dinner table. Ah, chickens, Childhood. Memories. 

Anyway, I presented James his beef pies and a salad unmarked by cucumbers, tomatoes, onions or parsley, while I sat down to a marvelous chicken pot pie served beside my lavish salad smothered in heart-attack bleu cheese dressing. I do love chicken.I also love seafood. I love Italian, Asian, Japanese and Indian foods. I hope I always have this rock solid stomach that guides me into those superb grocery stores where women smash together Sushi right there in front of me…eel, shrimp, tuna. It all tastes like wasabi anyway.

So now you know, James is pretty easy to please as long as it’s beef or pork. But for the beef pot pie, he even told me he liked it, and let’s do it again! You can believe it.