Month-of-Chicken: Chicken Pot (NOT Marijuana) Pie

Har-de-har-har! Got your attention with this recipe title, did I? Well, good, because you are going to want to do this one. What an easy supper. The kids will eat it. Clean up is minimal. And you’ll feel like you made a very special treat dinner. Who doesn’t love pot pies--meat, chicken, whatever?

This is a three-parter, however. You need to bake a chicken so you have leftover cooked meat and make the Cream of Chicken Soup from Friday’s post to use in this recipe. [I suppose you could cheat and use the canned stuff instead. But really! How hard is it to make your own?]

[Cue Jeopardy music--da da da da, da da da da, da da da da daaa da da da da da . . .] Done? Good. Now rifle through your refrigerator and cupboards for the rest of the delectable ingredients.

I’m going to give you two crust options so first, let’s make the innards of the traditional chicken pot pie.

Chicken Pot Pie (serves 6)

2 ½-3 cups leftover cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized chunks

12 oz pkg mixed peas and carrots, thawed

14 oz pkg pearl onions, thawed

1 c mushrooms, sliced

2 ½ c cream of chicken soup (or 2 cans undiluted soup concentrate)

Double pie crust

Preheat oven to 425º.

Place one crust in bottom of deep dish pie pan. In a bowl, mix together veggies, chicken, and soup. Pour into pie crust. Top with second crust, crimp edges, and cut slashes in the top to vent.

Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cover edge of crust with foil to prevent burning. Return to oven and bake another 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes to allow pot pie to “set”.

Serve with fruit salad. That’s all you need for a nutritious, hearty meal.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up! What’s not to like about this ultimate comfort food?

Now here’s an alternative: Let’s say you want to fancy up the pot pie for a casual company dinner. Let’s make a puff pastry crust for individual pot pies. You will need 5 sheets of phyllo pastry and ¼ cup of melted butter.

Preheat oven to 375º. Divide above chicken mixture among 8 ramekins.

Lay out one sheet of phyllo pastry (keeping other sheets under plastic wrap so they don’t dry out. Brush the sheet with butter. Add a second sheet on top of the first. Brush with butter. Repeat until all five sheets of phyllo are stacked together.

Cut stack (with a pizza cutter) in half length-wise. Cut into fourths from other side so you have eight stacks of phyllo. Top each ramekin with a stack.  Fold corners toward the center of the dishes.

Bake about 25 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden. Serve immediately.