A Great Depression Recipe to Bring Hope In Hard Times

Hello, my friend!

And welcome to my kitchen.

Well, it’s my mom’s kitchen in this photo and the attached mouth-watering video.

At least, it’s mouth-watering to me, because I grew up knowing that Nana’s Beef Pot Pie had one important ingredient: love.

Keep scrolling if you like to watch the art of food because my mom and I whipped up a batch and had a friend film it. (You know you need to see it if you’re addicted to The Great British Baking Show or Chopped!)

My Nana learned to cook during the Great Depression. Her Pot Pie was made of a beef bone with maybe a little bit of meat, a potato, a couple of eggs, and a few cups of flour.

 

And we loved it. I’m the third-generation grandma to pass the family recipe along. It wasn’t just the flat noodles on the plate, but the love and laughter that made it a family favorite long past the economic crisis was over.

I never knew until I was older that the recipe was born out of a season of fear flavored generously with faith. I just knew that when Nana made Pot Pie, everyone gathered around the table for love and laughter.

Nana used to remind me that she fed her extended family—cousins and uncles and aunts included—on mere dollars. Today it costs me about $20 to do the same.

I wonder what new foods, special traditions, and love and laughter we will carry out hard times if we flavor it with faith?

Maybe this video will whet your appetite! I hope it makes you as hungry to study God’s Word as it does to whip up a batch of Beef Pot Pie.

Nana’s Pot Pie Recipe

Nana handed me a hand-written recipe card at my bridal shower over three decades ago. It contained no instructions because she’d shown me how to do it so many times. She just wanted me to have this treasure. I’m so glad!

5-6 lb chuck roast w/ beef bone (or roast and a stew bone)
Minced onion
Garlic salt
2 potatoes
10-12 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
8-9 eggs
2 large cans of beef broth

Preheat oven to 400.
Generously cover chuck roast with minced onion to taste and a generous layer of garlic salt. Fill the roasting pan with water up to almost the top of the meat, but don’t fill over the top. Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes until the roast is crisp to seal juices. Turn over down to 250 and roast about 2-3 hours until the meat is tender and you’ve got dark brown juices. (Add water if needed to keep the liquid plentiful.)

Pour the broth you’ve made into a large soup or stew pot. Add one can of beef broth. Turn it on high to boil it.

Peel and ever-so-thinly slice the potatoes and add to the boiling broth.

Mix 10 cups of flour with salt and eggs. Mix by hand until everything is moist. Add a bit of cold water if you don’t think your dough is wet enough. You’re looking for dough the consistency of pie crust. Pat it into a ball. Cut off a bit at a time and roll out into a thin layer. Cut into squares using a pizza cutter. Drop square by square into the boiling broth. Add the second can of broth as needed, just a bit at a time. Repeat until the dough has all been added to the boiling broth. Stirring each time you add another batch of pot pie squares. Then, turn the pot down to medium-low heat and let it thicken and cook for about 30 minutes. Moisten with more broth or water as needed. Salt and pepper to taste.

During the depression, I imagine there were times Nana served only the noodles. But we served the pot pie noodles the way she did in our family’s “good” years.