An Amazing Chicken Pot Pie

Six months ago, I have never eaten Chicken Pot Pie. Can you believe that?

I just thought it must be gross, why even try it?

Then costco changed my mind lol!

As browse the yummy meats and prepared foods, they had a chicken pot pie sample.

It smelled amazing! I tasted it...after sending my mom back to fight for a sample.

It was so delicious. My wonderful mother bought one and we had it the next night for dinner. I don't think there were leftovers.

So after Thanksgiving I decided to make my own with leftover turkey. It was delicious, but not quite as good.

Tonight all of that changed. I made the most amazing chicken pot pie that I absolutely loved. 

I got the recipe off www.allrecipes.com, but I managed to make numerous changes that made it my own. You wouldn't think that pot pie would have so many variations but it does! Lots! This is mine and believe me...before its even popped in the oven, your mouth will be watering and your husband will make a couple appearances in the kitchen :)

Chicken Pot Pie

1 pound cubed chicken breasts, diced

1 c. sliced carrots

1 c. frozen peas

1/2 c-1 c. of potato, diced

1/2 c. sliced celery

1/2 c. butter

1/3 c. chopped onion

1/3 c. +2 T. flour

3/4 t. salt

1/2 t. pepper

1/2 t. celery seed

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. poultry seasoning

2 c. chicken stock

1 cup milk

 1 pie crust

Preheat oven to 425*

In a saucepan, combine carrots, peas, potatoes and celery. Add water to cover, and boil for 15 minutes.

Remove from heat, drain, and pour into the bottom of pie or casserole dish.

Cook chicken over medium heat until cooked all the way through. 

Stir into veggie mixture in the casserole dish.

In a saucepan, over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent.

Stir in the flour, salt, pepper, celery seed, poultry seasoning, and garlic powder.

Slowly stir in the chicken broth and milk. 

Simmer over medium low heat until thick. 

Remove from heat and pour over chicken/veggie mixture. 

Cover with crust, cut small slits in top of crust and bake for 30-35 minutes.

When you take it out of the oven, allow it to sit for 10 minutes before serving.

*You can make this with two pie crusts, if you do, just put a crust in the bottom of your dish and bake for 6 minutes, then remove from the oven and you can add the chicken and veggies, and continue on the recipe. I have double the sauce in the recipe, but it in turn has made it a deep dish pie or a deeper casserole dish. But use what your able to, and adjust the amounts if needed, or make it as I instructed and feel free to reserve some of the veggie, chicken and sauce to make as chicken and dumpling (and serve with biscuits instead of crust). Just multiple options. :)

I made my own pie crust.

Butter Flaky Pie Crust

1 1/4 c. flour

1/4. t. salt

1/2 c. flour, chilled and diced

1/4 c. ice water

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt.

Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs.

Stir in the ice water, one tablespoon at a time, until it forms a ball. Wrap in plastic and chill for 4 hours to overnight.

*I did have to use a little more than 1/4 cup of water...just make sure to add water a little at a time.

Hints from a working mother

The past couple nights I've been cooking dinner and meal multitasking.
I'll be the first to admit that I get lazy, a lot.
I have many nights that I don't feel like making anything, or just dread defrosting whatever meat may be called for in my latest recipe.
So last night as Nick was cutting up chicken for chicken tacos, and I had him cut up a couple extra breasts. All the extra effort to do that was taking 2 extra breasts out as the same time as the chicken for the tacos, and then like 5 minutes maybe to dice it up, along with the other chicken.
The results: Prep time was cut for dinner tonight: Chicken Pot Pie. I didn't have to dread cutting or cooking the chicken (I could have cooked it with the taco chicken before I added the taco sauce to it and saved even more time). Plus knowing that I had raw chicken in the fridge that would go bad if it stayed there too long was motivation enough to cook it right away tonight.

I'm constantly amazed at how easy it is to get two meals out of one dish, or even to take one step out of the next nights meals and encourage myself to cook instead of run out to grab something. This is a lesson I've tried to show my brother time and time again, as he complained that cooking for one was really hard. Yes, you may not want to eat meatloaf for a week the same way, but there are way to turn that meatloaf into other meals like spaghetti and meatballs, meatloaf sandwiches, Italian subs etc.

So here are some examples of way to make homemade easier for you:

Example #1: Spaghetti and meatballs with a side salad...great for one night..not so great over and over, so I'd have spaghetti and meatballs the first night, the next night (or skip a day so you don't get burned out, they'll keep), Meatball Subs- heat up the meatball and sauce (or add a little extra sauce) and serve them on toasted sub rolls with melted mozzarella cheese. Then have the salad with lunch and add a little turkey, cheese, or extra veggies like avacado if you like that, or even leftover taco meat from another dinner and tortilla chips.  You just got a lunch, and two dinners out of one meal, and that's not even counting if you ate the dinners as lunches or dinner as a repeat.

Example #2: I love breakfast for dinner..love it!! As a mom its a night of no whining and clean plates. Plus leftover pancakes, waffles or french toast for the morning. So the other night we had breakfast for dinner. We had eggs, hash browns, fruit salad, and french toast. There were leftovers (on purpose), so I was able to have french toast in the morning for Izzy, fruit salad to go in her lunch, and mix in for Nick's yogurt, and some for a small smoothie in the morning for me. Then eggs were used in fried rice, I had leftover rice from the day before that I just put in a pan with salt and pepper, soy sauce, the leftover egg, and a little cubed ham, and green onions. Then hash browns were combined with the leftover ham (that was used in the fried rice) and an au gratin sauce and that made a hash brown and ham casserole.

Are you getting my drift? This way you are able to make all your food and dinners stretch into lunches, breakfast or snacks, and sometimes into another dinner. In times where food prices soar, and laziness prevails, its nice to think of ways to make it all work but without much effort at the same time.

If you don't want to try this method...fine. Atleast make it easier on yourself and take steps out of tomorrow's meals, and do prep when you can the night before. Make bacon for breakfast and cook the whole package and use it on club or BLT sandwiches, or crumble it and put it in potato soup, or on potatoes with cheese. Cut up extra chicken so you don't have to worry about it later. Make your budget and creativity stretch and you'll be pleasantly surprised. I promise! This is a lesson I've seen my mother use, and I now actively enjoy. I actually enjoy it! Just try it when you make you meal list this week...I bet you'll throw away a lot less.