Caught up in the socio-erotic minefield that is the 39th & Powell Safeway, I had not before now experienced the Grocery Outlet. Consider it the Marshall’s of goods both perishable and tinned: the milk may go sour in seven minutes (Hurry! Drink it! Drink the milk, dear little Timothy!), and the expired bath tissue may feature gnomes in balaclavas, but I think you could buy the entire place out for twenty-three dollars. As a personal challenge, I decided to make chicken pot pies from their inventory, and this is what resulted:

For your consideration, I present: Food Pie! For about nine dollars I procured enough crusts, organic drumsticks, fresh broccoli, and frozen potatoes O’brien to make three 12” pies. Dinner for eighteen, at around fifty cents per soul.

The drumsticks were fricaseed in salted water until cooked, then the meat shredded off. The broccoli was quickly blanched and chopped, the potatoes crumbled apart but added frozen. The ingredients were bound together in a hot pan with a simple, seasoned milky roux until just a tad too moist (to account for evaporation during cooking), dumped onto the raw bottom crust in a springform pan, covered, baked until emotionally appealing, and then gazed upon by cherubim. I think I feel a Frugal Reader Cooking Contest coming on.