Chicken Pot Pie

Had my blog been up and running two weeks ago I would have posted this then, but football and Thanksgiving got in the way.  In case anyone isn't aware, it was exactly two weeks ago today that the Hawks pounded the Gophers (55-0!) in the Gopher's last game in the Metrodome.  It was an awesome game for all of the Iowa fans, including my family of Iowa grads who converged on the Twin Cities from around the country.  Here's a picture of me and my big bros.  That guy in the middle made those hats on our heads with his own two hands.  Cool, huh?

By the time Sunday night rolled around and everyone had left, I was anxiously anticipating Thanksgiving, and I was really wanting some comfort food.  I'm still unsure of how I could be hungry after all of the food that was consumed throughout the weekend, such as my crab cake benedict from our breakfast at Calhoun Grill.

And these cupcakes from the awesome Magnolia Bakery cookbook that I made for Kyle's birthday.

And if I had a picture of the giant pretzel with cheese I consumed at the game, I would post that as well.  But I don't.  So I will move on to the headliner.  The chicken pot pie.  I've always been a fan of pot pies.  I remember when I was little I would always beg my mom to buy those pot pies from the freezer section.  It would kill me to have to wait 45 minutes for it to cook.  The questionable meat always irked me a little, too, but it was always worth it when you took the first bite of the creamy filling and chased it with a bite of the flaky crust.  So, 15 years later, I decided to try my hand at making my own.  

I looked up a bunch of recipes and kind of took a little from all of them.  Most of them had a lot of cream, butter or whole milk, which I was not about to use after the weekend I had just had.  So I improvised.  

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked, cubed/chopped/shredded/whatever chicken*

2 carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

3/4 cup peas

3/4 cup corn

3/4 cup - 1 cup potatoes, cubed

1 small onion, diced

1 clove garlic, smashed/minced

1 can low sodium cream of chicken soup + about 1-1/2 cans of water

2 pieces of pie crust**

1 sheet puff pastry 

1 egg, beaten

* For the chicken I didn't really feel like taking the time to cook it myself, so I just bought one of the whole, cooked chickens at the grocery store.  It was a good way to go, and I had a lot of leftover chicken that I used for the chicken chili and I used all of the bones for chicken stock.  Buying the whole chicken also reminded me of a time in college when my friend Justin woke up on his couch with 2 chicken carcasses on the floor beside him.  He has no idea how he got the chickens, but he definitely devoured them.

** I made this pie in a 9" glass pan, so I just kind of messed around with the two pie crusts - cutting and splicing - until the whole pan was covered.  There are probably better methods to this, but I'm certain they all end up with a tasty pot pie.  And I had a sheet of puff pastry in the freezer that I wanted to use up, so I used that for the lattice top.  

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375

2. Arrange your pie crust in the pan you're using.  You may want to throw it in the oven for 5 minutes or so, but I don't think it's necessary

3. Saute the onions & garlic in a large pan until the onions are barely brown.  

4. Throw in the carrots & celery, and cook for a couple more minutes. 

5. Add in the soup and water, stir it, and bring it to a boil.  Once it's boiling throw in the potatoes, and continue cooking them until they're fairly tender.   Then add the peas, corn, and chicken, and continue cooking until it thickens.  Season with salt & pepper and any other spices you might want to throw in.  

6. Once it's thick, dump all of it into the pie crust.

7. Cover the pie with either a solid top with some slits or a lattice top.  

8. Brush the top crust with the beaten egg and bake it for 40-45 minutes.  Let it cool for 10 minutes or so before slicing into it.  

Here's what it should look like:

Well, maybe yours won't have a cool lion on top, but that's because you don't have a cool brother that gives you lion cookie cutters for your birthday.  So you probably can't do stuff like this:

Or arrange them like this:

But even without a pride of lions, you should end up with a delicious meal.