Stop. Eat. Enjoy: Chicken Pot Pie

Not many other foods in this world demand you slow down and take a moment like Chicken Pot Pie. As one of the great quintessential comfort foods of our time, this savory pie is will have your mouth watering hours before dinner. It’s like a spa treatment for the stomach. The aromatic smells of sautéing onions, garlic, leeks, celery and carrots will get the juices flowing. After preparing your cream sauce from a hot chicken stock and cold cream, toss in some chunks of tender chicken. Soon enough everything will be soaking in a bubbling bath of cream sauce on your stove. Then tuck it gently into a casserole dish with a layer of soft dough, and set it in oven until the crust is golden and flakey.

It’s a heavy belly bomb of flavor and satisfaction; you will most likely want a nap afterwards to complete your relaxing feast. It’s so hot you can barely eat it, but burning a couple taste buds seems a worthy price to pay. Few things can be valued as greatly as a homemade chicken pot pie. To me, it’s home, it’s family, it’s love. Although this time I went it alone: made it myself, with a new recipe and no family to partake in the eating, it was the same delicious goodness that I remembered from childhood. 

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs

2 chicken legs

2 T olive oil

2 leeks, sliced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

2 stalks of celery, sliced

½ onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

2 T butter

2 T flour

2 c chicken stock [homemade is the best!]

½ c heavy cream

1 can cream of mushroom soup

½ c frozen peas

Salt and pepper

2 pie dough shells [refrigerated]

Instructions:

1. In large pot, boil chicken in about 4-5 c of water for about 15 min, until cooked.
   
2. Remove from water, let cool. Then cut into chunks.
   
3. Drain water from pot, add olive oil.
4. Add vegetables and sauté for about 7 min over medium heat.
5. Remove vegetables from pot.
6. Add butter, melt. Add flour, make roux.
7. Slowly pour in chicken broth, whisk until smooth over medium low heat.
8. Once thickened, whisk in cream.
9. Add can of cream of mushroom soup, continue to whisk until smooth and thick.

10. Add in chicken and vegetables, and frozen peas. Salt and pepper this dish lightly as it does
not need added salt.
11. Continue to cook over medium heat until heated through.

** ***This can be made ahead of time, just keep on stove on low heat until ready to bake.

12. 12. Preheat oven to 350.

13. 13. Put first pie shell in bottom of ceramic casserole dish, do not poke holes in crust.

14 14. Add in the cream, veggie, chicken mix.

15. 15. Put second pie shell over top, pinch sides.

16. 16. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 min.

Makes one large, 4 person pie. NOMS: 9.6