Went from adorable to possessed real fast

I did a Jack-o-lantern chicken pot pie for Halloween! We had to eat it quickly because if we didn’t I fear an unholy entity would have taken up residence in our home. It was a good thing it tasted nice 🙂

I made the crust orange just with seasonings. Rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic (to match the pot pie flavors) and then tumeric and smoked paprika for color. It was the King Arthur flour all butter pie crust recipe.

The filling was a pretty standard free-balled pot pie filling. Mushrooms, onions, carrots, potato, peas, chicken, lots of herbs, a little white wine. I used broth and oat milk because it was all we had and honestly the oat milk didn’t change the flavor at all and made a super nice gravy. So that’s a win if anyone doesn’t want to do dairy or is trying make something a little less calorie dense. I have taste tested several oat milks though (I make non dairy recipes a lot) and a lot of them taste sweet even if it says they’re unsweetened or plain. So if you are someone that likes to do non-dairy savory cooking and are near a Wegmans the store brand extra creamy oatmilk is the best one I’ve tried.

If anyone has any pie crust tips for the upcoming holidays or good resources, I’m all ears. I’ve tried various methods (chilling the pie before baking, cooking at a hotter temp initially and dropping it down) and seem to always have my crust “puff” rather than retain its shape. I’d like to make some nice detailed pies but am not sure how to keep those crimped edges. Is this a situation where I have to just use shortening instead of butter? I’d like to keep doing all butter crusts if I can.