“I find cooking calms me, relieving my stress,” my sister Deb told me when we worked on this recipe together a few years ago for my blog. I remember dancing around her teeny tiny studio kitchen, her with her ingredients, me with my camera and reflectors.

“And I guess it’s also a way for me to show people that I love them, you know?”

Yes, I know, because we watched Mom and Dad do the same thing our entire lives.

Deb and I perfected our cooking styles by fearless trial and error, like my parents before us. When reinterpreting the classics, I often study various sources to understand them better and then jump in and start experimenting in the kitchen. Debbie is much more intuitive, as she remembers the taste of a dish she liked and will do trial and error until she comes up with a version that is as close to the memory — or better — as possible.

We used to try to get together regularly to cook with each other and sometimes, just for each other while the other sister looked on, a glass of wine in hand. Those times are precious to me now. She’s been living with my parents for a few years, acting as their primary caretaker. The pandemic kept us from sharing a meal, let alone cooking in a kitchen together for most of 2020.

But on this particular afternoon, pre-pandemic, pre-living with my folks, she had me over for a Saturday visit and agreed to let me photograph her cooking so I could share her recipe on my blog.

Debbie is a creative, sensitive and brilliant human being. Her talents manifest in so many areas: She has designed and sewn clothing, she paints, sketches, excels in writing and math in ways I can’t begin to comprehend, makes custom jewelry and can crochet and knit everything from a bedspread to a shawl and even sweaters for her doggies. But more than any other form of creative expression, I feel cooking is an excellent vehicle for all that creative energy. It shows in every dish she creates.

“How did you come up with this recipe?” I asked her as we sat, waiting for the pies to bake off in the oven.

“It was a soup, originally,” she told me. She has said to me in the past that she often has either homemade or frozen pie dough on hand for just this kind of impromptu creative culinary session. “I knew I had the dough, and I thought, if I thicken the soup so it’s more like a gravy, I could use it for pot pies.”

I’m a frozen pie crust kind of gal. I rarely make it from scratch because it always intimidates me. Deb, however, said she learned to make it watching Dad make his killer apple pies from scratch every fall.

“What’s the first thing you remember cooking?” I asked.

“It was shredding cheese for enchiladas. Mom was so worried I was going to cut myself.”

But Debs, as usual, attacked that chore and mastered it.

“I also remember being about 7 years old, standing on a chair so I could reach the chopping block and the stove, cooking breakfast for (our sister) Cat and her friends,” she added.

I’ll rewind here. There are five siblings — all of us girls. And we are named alphabetically in order of age. So I’m the oldest. Cathy is the third child.

Deb’s favorite food? Chicken and dumplings, because it reminds her of Mom. I think it’s a favorite of all of us girls. We were treated to it again for the first time since we were children this past December, when Mom made it for our youngest sister’s birthday.

When I asked Deb what dish she’d like to learn, she said she actually would love to learn Greek cooking.

“Hmm. Spanakopita and moussaka. Yeah, I’d like to learn how to make those.”

Deb finally got a reason to experiment with cooking Greek food last year. Toward the tail end of 2020, once we better understood how to navigate the pandemic, we resumed our monthly sister dinners, cooking on my outdoor patio. Each month, we tackle a different cuisine. These afternoon cooking sessions give us a chance to spend time together, making memories and showing our love for each other through our cooking — just like Mom and Dad taught us.

FOR THE CRUST: 2 ½ cups self-rising flour ¼ teaspoon salt 1 cup very cold butter, cut into ½-inch cubes 6 to 8 tablespoons ice water

FOR THE FILLING: 1 pound partially frozen or partially defrosted flank or top sirloin steak ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon ground black pepper ¼ cup flour ½ teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon onion powder ¾ teaspoon paprika 2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided 3 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 green onions, chopped 2 cans beef broth 1 ⅔ cups water 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables 1 heaping tablespoon arrowroot

FOR THE EGG WASH: 1 large egg ¼ cup water

Make the crust: Whisk flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter, fork or whisk, cut in the butter. It should resemble a crumble topping with the butter not getting much smaller than the size of a pea. Add 6 tablespoons of the ice-cold water, then quickly mix the dough with your hands until the dough holds a ball. Add 1 or 2 more tablespoons of ice water if it’s too dry. Handle the dough as little as possible to not warm it up. Cut a large sheet of plastic cling wrap and place dough in the center. Wrap tightly and chill for at least 2 hours (or best practice, chill overnight).

Make the filling: Cut meat into ¼-inch cubes, then season with salt and pepper. Whisk the flour, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika in a bowl. Add the meat and toss to coat with the flour. Transfer the meat to a plate or bowl, shaking off the excess flour.

Add 1 tablespoon oil and half the butter to a heavy-bottomed stockpot and place on medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the beef and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove meat and set aside. In the same pot, add the rest of the remaining oil and butter. When the butter has melted, toss in the garlic and green onions; sauté for 1 minute. Pour in the beef broth and water; simmer for 5 minutes.

Return the meat to the pot and add the vegetables. Stir well and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove about 1 cup of the hot broth to a small bowl or mug and whisk in the arrowroot. Add this mixture back to the pot, stirring well to combine. Turn heat down to low and simmer for 5 minutes to thicken. Remove pot from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Assemble the pies: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly flour work surface, then roll out dough to about ¼-inch thickness. Use a lightly floured 3-inch biscuit cutter (or do what both my sister and father do and use a drinking glass or coffee mug) to cut eight rounds into the rolled-out dough. Generously butter the insides of four ramekins. Drop a round of dough into the bottom of a ramekin. Press it into the corners and up the sides using dough scraps to bring the dough up the sides of the ramekin. Repeat for remaining ramekins.

Carefully fill each ramekin up to ⅛ inch below the rim with the meat mixture. Cover each ramekin with a dough round and use fingers or a fork to press the dough down onto the ramekins, making a tight seal.

Crack the egg into a mug and whisk in the water to make an egg wash, then brush the tops of each of the pot pies with it. Using a sharp knife, cut slits into the top of each pie and place them, evenly spaced, on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, turning the pan midway through baking time to ensure even baking. Pies are ready when the tops are evenly golden. Remove pies from the oven and let them rest for 10 minutes before eating.

Recipe, as written, is copyrighted by Anita L. Arambula and is reprinted by permission from Confessions of a Foodie.

Arambula is the food section art director and designer. She blogs at confessionsofafoodie.me, where the original version of this article was published. Follow her on Instagram: @afotogirl. She can be reached at anita.arambula@sduniontribune.com.

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