Chicken Pot Pie

I turned the last of the chicken into chicken pot pie.

Many of the recipes that I look at call for copious amounts of chicken to go into the recipe.

My personal opinion is that when this recipe was first invented, the purpose was not to go out and buy new chicken, or even to use an entire new chicken in the recipe.  My opinion is that it was originally developed to stretch a chicken a little bit farther. 

I honestly don't think my husbands grandmother, who raised 8 kids on a farm during the Great Depression ever managed to stretch a chicken this far out.  I do know she would roast a chicken, and I do know that she would make the leftovers into soup.  Sometimes, that soup came in the form of chicken and dumplings, sometimes it came in the form of chicken pot pie.  When you're feeding 10 hungry people who are doing hard physical labor on a farm, I do think you would find new and inventive ways to stretch a dollar as far as possible. 

There are easier short cuts to making a chicken pot pie for dinner.  However, since I'm still trying to keep my costs down as low as possible, I made this from scratch.  This provides one other health benefit for me:  I control the sodium levels, and I control the food quality.  I'm not worried about what strange additives went into the making of my dinner. 

Chicken Pot Pie

(Recipe adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, copyright circa 1982)

1 10 ounce package of frozen peas and carrots
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms (I use 1 cup)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground sage
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 cups water
3/4 cup milk
1 TBSP chicken bullion (or 1 of the frozen bullion cubes I made this summer)
3 cups cooked chicken or turkey (I used less when I made this, since I was down to about 1 cup at the time)
2 baked potatoes, diced
Pie Crust

In a saucepan, cook onion and mushroom in olive oil until tender but not brown.  Add water, milk, and bullion all at once.  Cook and stir until thick and bubbly.  Cook and stir one to two minutes more.  Stir in veggies, chicken or turkey, heat until bubbly.  Turn chicken mixture into a deep pie pan.

**** Pie Crust*** see notes at bottom

Bake in a 450* oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until crust is golden brown.


*** There are differing schools of thought on pot pie crusts.  Some people like a crust only on top.  Some people like pie crust on both top and bottom.  Depending upon what I have on hand, I've been known to make biscuits and drop them on top of the pie.  I know people who will cut up refrigerated biscuits into quarters and cover the top of their pie.  Use whatever materials you have on hand to make this work for you!

**I am not including a recipe for pie crust because I can not, for the life of me, make a decent pie crust. I don't know if it's my recipe, or me, but I lean toward operator error.  I use refrigerated pie crusts.  When I made this the other night, I topped it with biscuits, because that is what I had on hand.