Mini Food, Big Taste!

Isn't mini food cute?  For some reason it just is more fun to eat than normal sized food.  Is it because we can tell ourselves that we are eating mini calories?   For you Jim Gaffigan fans out there it's like eating muffin vitamins!  If you don't know who Jim Gaffigan is and you have no idea what I'm talking about then just shake your head and move onto the yummy food below.  :)  Or watch him on YouTube, laugh, and then come back and look at the yummy food below.

For this recipe if you want to use a premade mix such as Bisquick you certainly can, but in our house we like to make our own baking mix and it is really fast to throw it all together.  Here is the recipe we use:

- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (or one stick) of softened butter
- Milk to texture

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add in the butter and milk.  When adding in the milk you want the batter to be a little bit thicker than waffle batter.  Thick but still spoonable.  (It's my recipe, I can make up words.) 

After you've made up your batter, whether using homemade or Bisquick, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray.  Put a large spoonful of the batter in the bottom of each of the tins and place a pepperoni on top of the batter.

Place a spoonful of spaghetti sauce on top of each of the pepperonis.  (Pepperonis is a really odd looking word by the way, and I didn't even make that one up.)

Add a handful of mozzarella or parmesan cheese onto the sauce ...

and cover with  an additional pepperoni.

Pour one more spoonful of batter over the top completely covering all the filling.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the batter comes out clean.  As you can see the top of these don't really brown so if you wait for them to be golden brown the sides will most likely have burned.   My other tip is to make sure you put in enough filling.  If you don't put in enough your pot pies may be a little dry.  But when you do it right (and it isn't hard to get it right) they come out so tasty!

This recipe was a big hit with my husband and it was really easy for him to take the leftovers to work the next day.  You can reheat them in the microwave or if you're able pop them into the oven for 5 to 10 minutes to reheat. I like them reheated in the oven better. These freeze really well too and can be thawed out in the fridge in a day or on the counter for a few hours.  Since this recipe was a keeper we've experimented with them and found some variations we really like as well.

Using the same batter and layering method I put together a filling of shredded chicken, cheddar cheese, frozen veggies, and a spoonful of gravy.   Tasty!

The fiesta version was also a favorite of my husband because he LOVES spicy food.  We had some leftover taco meat so I used that with some cheddar and pepper-jack cheese, salsa, and jalapenos.

I think you could put just about anything in these nifty little pies- its a great way to use up leftovers.  You can download the PDF recipe page here.

I do have a quick question for you, dear readers.  What format do you prefer for the recipe download?  Do you like it to be the size of a recipe card or do you print off the whole page and put it in a binder?  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!