Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

I feel like it has been ages since I posted a recipe!  Let me just assure you, it is leaps and bounds better than anything you could find in the frozen section.

Speaking of frozen section… this was the view outside my window this morning.  That is layers and layers of ice coating just about everything with a nice 4 inch snow chaser, just for good measure.  Oh, did I mention that we’re supposed to get another 4 inches tomorrow night?  Last week it was nearly 60 degrees and every bit of our snow had melted.  Spring, I’m ready for you.

   

When I was busy shopping and carrying on with my girlfriends and Pioneer Woman, Dave was home with Finn roasting a chicken.  I can’t even make this stuff up.  What dad decides to make roasted chicken when frozen pizzas, takeout Thai, and mac n cheese exist?  Only my Dave. 

Needless to say, we had loads of roaster chicken left over and I decided to make a homemade chicken pot pie with the leftovers.  Now, to keep this EASY on yourself, if you don’t have a bunch of leftover chicken from a weird husband, just pick up a roaster from the grocery store already done.  If you want turkey or beef pot pie, use leftover turkey from Thanksgiving or leftover pot roast.  You could even double the veggies and make it meatless if you’d like.  Whatever works for you.

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

• {2} potatoes which yielded about 3 cups of cut up pieces
• half a large onion {I used white but red or yellow are just fine}
• 1 1/2 cups of chopped up carrots or parsnip
• 2 cups of frozen veggies, thawed {peas, corn, green beans, whatever your family likes}
• 2-3 cups of cut up chicken
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2 cups chicken stock {use something GOOD here, it will make a difference}
• 1 cup cream
• {2} homemade or ready made pie crusts {Trader Joes has the BEST in the frozen section!} –OR- {2} cans of buttermilk biscuit dough

Start with prepping the veggies.  I’ll fully admit that I am LAZY so you could potentially stand there for an hour and sautee all of the veggies instead, but I prefer to cut everything up and roast them in the oven at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  I used half a large white onion, two potatoes, & carrots because that is what I had on hand.  If a special trip to the store was involved, I probably would have added a parsnip to mine.  Basically, you cut it all up into bite sized pieces, slap on your favorite seasonings {be liberal with the spices, it will add to the flavor} and a little olive oil & throw it into the oven.  Pull it out when it is just fork tender and let it cool while it makes your house smell heavenly and your husband will think that you spent all day slaving. 

  

When you throw it all in the oven, you can also take 2 cups of frozen veggies out to thaw in the fridge.  If you happen to be super lazy and forget to take the veggies out, you could also potentially microwave them just for a minute or two so they aren’t frozen.  Ahem.  I used peas and green beans.  I did chop up the green beans a little to make them the same size as everything else.

Now you’re going to make the sauce.  In a heavy pan, melt the butter, then shake the flour in and start whisking until it turns a very light golden color, then continue to whisk while adding in the chicken stock.  As an aside here, try to use a homemade stock or at least a good substitute.  I used chicken demi glace that you reconstitute into stock, using the good stuff will make a huge difference in taste.  After the stock is fully incorporated {you don’t want any lumps} and the sauce is thickening, you’re going to whisk in the cream.  Allow this to cook for a minute or two to thicken.  Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit or if you are impatient like me, you’ll just pour it over the veggies & chicken.

At this point you can cover the bowl and pop the whole thing into the fridge for later use, or continue with making the pie.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  When you’re ready to assemble, dump the bowl of mix into a pie crust and top with another pie crust.  You will want to do this on a cookie sheet, in the {extremely likely} event that there will be some spillage during assembly or cooking you won’t have a mess to clean up.  Some of you might be fancy pie crust workers and some of us, as evidenced by these photos, are decidedly not.  If you can, go ahead and make it pretty.  If you can’t, no worries it’ll still taste divine.  Poke a hole or two in the crust, especially at the top so you get some vent holes for the hot filling.  Throw the whole thing in the oven and turn it down to 350 degrees.  Bake for one hour.

Alternatively, if screwing with pie crust is not your thing, you can also pop the mixture into a glass baking dish and top with buttermilk biscuit dough from a can.  As you can clearly see… pie crusts are decidedly not my forte and next time I’m going to be doing this instead!

One thing I absolutely love about this, aside from the fact that it is mouthwatering, is that everything could potentially be prepped the day before or in my case, the morning of, to make dinnertime easier.  Plus it uses up all of the leftover stuff.  It is really delicious, Dave was surprised at the flavor and remarked how good it was even if it looked like a mess coming out of the pie tin.