This week calls for some hacks. Start by roasting a chicken in your airfryer.

I support paying for content. I have one of my pantries crammed with cookbooks and a couple decades’ worth of cooking magazines. I finally stopped the paper and gave in to the apps some years ago: Epicurious (sorry, Ruth Reichl, that really did screw over Gourmet) was the first, then America’s Test Kitchen, then my latest ace-in-the-hole, BBC Good Food.

BBC Good Food is a goldmine. It’s a little vegan-heavy for me at times but there is always something there I want to cook within seconds of browsing. And if you want to make a traditional hotpot, toad-in-the-hole or other British standby, this is where to go (apologies to Nigella, BBC wins on precision).

And roasting a chicken in the airfryer is a complete weeknight win. It’s a quick rub with some fat you’ve seasoned to your liking and bang it into the Cosori. 45-60 minutes later it’s chicken. Then you let it rest, pour the drippings out to make gravy, toss some frozen French fries into the fryer, make a salad, and you have roast chicken, gravy, chicken fat fries and a good green salad. So. Much. Winning.

Method: you have to have a square airfryer holding at least 6 quarts, and the chicken can’t be more than 4-4.5 pounds. Season oil or butter with salt and seasonings you like and rub the chicken with it. Season the cavity as well. Heat the airfryer to 350. Place the chicken breast side down and cook at 350 for 30 minutes. Flip (I use wooden or silicone tongs so I don’t rip the skin) and cook breast side up for 15 minutes. Take a temperature in the thigh. If still not 165, crank to 400 and cook for 5-15 minutes longer. If your chicken is smaller - 3-3.5 pounds - take 5 minutes off each of the cooking times,

Then, you need a hack at your disposal. Keep a cup or so of browned flour in a jar. You will never have to fight to make a dark roux again. Just dump a cup of flour on a baking tray and put it in a 350 degree oven for 2-3 hours until it is the color of peanut butter (I am guessing at this as I hate peanut butter and won’t give it house room).

When you make gumbo, you won’t be stuck over a hot pot whisking a puddle of lava. You just dump your brown flour into your hot oil and get on with your life.

And then, on a crowded Tuesday when you have some random roast chicken and gravy leftovers, you have Cajun pot pie in the making.

This is an eyeball recipe because you are using up leftovers.

You’re going to cut up some trinity (onion, celery, pepper – and peel the pepper with a vegetable peeler…Jacques Pépin does it and you should too) and sauté it. You want about ¼ cup each per person. You can throw in some fresh jalapeño if you like. I don’t peel it because the peels don’t get nasty like bell peppers do. Season with salt and pepper.

Once it’s soft, throw in about 3 oz of diced smoked sausage per person and cook until the sausage releases some oil. Now add a tablespoon of that brown flour per person. Sprinkle with a nice coating of cayenne. You know what you can tolerate.

Drop in your leftover gravy so that you have about ½-3/4 cup of liquid per person. If you’re short on gravy, top it off with broth. Dump in your leftover chicken that you’ve shredded, maybe a scant ½ cup per person. Taste the mess. Maybe jack it up with a little Worcestershire or hot sauce.

At this point you can bake it in a single dish or individual bowls. However – if you are using pie or pastry dough – chill the filling first or you will have a mess. If you are using biscuits, it can go on the warm filling if you bake it right away.

For a top crust, Bisquick mix turned into biscuits with some black pepper and garlic powder works well. So does refrigerated pie dough or frozen puff pastry. If you need to feed your sourdough, make some sourdough biscuits, but that is really more work than this recipe is worth. I wouldn’t turn up my nose at bread from a pop tube.  

Put your baking dish(es) on a baking tray because you might have spillover and no one wants to clean an oven this week. Bake at the temperature indicated by your top crust choice until it is the color you like. Let the stuff cool a good ten minutes because the filling is insulated magma.