Thursday's Eats ~ Chicken Pot Pie

This post is dedicated to my partner in crime cooking and frugal living, Shannon.  She sent me this recipe to me three times, because I managed to misplace it each time she gave it to me. I finally made it last week and it was delicious!  Caleb would not stop talking about how wonderful it was.  This is definitely going into my tried and true recipe folder. 

I'm starting off with the crust here.  Combine all of the dry ingredients together.  Because I don't have a nifty mixer with awesome attachments I have to go old school.  A great trick I learned last year was to grate your butter into your pie crust instead of cutting it.  It makes the pieces much smaller and it is way easier than cutting butter. :)  So go ahead, grate the butter into the dry ingredients.

Mix together.  It will resemble something like this...

 Add the water.  At this point I got my hands involved.  Start mixing it and kneading it...

 Until it looks like this!

 Cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Next, the scrumptious filling!

Take a saucepan out and begin melting the butter.

(If you use onions, add them at this point and cook until soft)

Add the onion powder, flour, salt, pepper, garlic and thyme. 

 It should thicken up and start looking like this...

 Add the chicken broth and milk.  It will look really liquidy.

But within a few minutes, it will thicken up once again!

 While my sauce was thickening up, I  took the pie crust back out and split it in half and began rolling it out.  I decided I need some training on pie crust making.  You'll see proof of why soon.

Ahem.

 Once your sauce is thick again, add your chopped chicken and frozen veggies.  Mix well.

 Pour filling into prepared pie crust.

 Next, roll our the second half of the pie crust.  Pray for patience.  I honestly had none, which is why my pie turned out looking like this.

It's so sad.  I can't believe I am even putting this picture up.

 It was worth it though, look at how delicious!!

 Go ahead and make it while our evenings are still cool.  It's the perfect comfort food.

Chicken Pot Pie

1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cooked & cubed

1 (12oz) bag frozen mixed veggies

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup chopped onion (I used 1 tsp onion powder)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon celery seed (I didn’t use this)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp thyme (dried)

1 3/4 cups chicken broth

2/3 cup milk

 2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft. Stir in flour and seasonings. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick, stirring. 

Add cooked chicken and veggies to the saucepan. Mix ingredients together and then pour in bottom pie crust. Cover with top crust, seal edges and cut away excess dough. Make several smalls slits in the top to allow steam to escape. 

Bake for 30 min or until golden brown and filling is bubbly. Serves 8.

Pie Crust

(you need to double the recipe in order to get 2 crusts.

1¼ cups all-purpose flour (I did half whole wheat and half unbleached all purpose flour)
1 tbsp. sugar
¼ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 tbsp. very cold water

Directions: Combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix briefly to blend. Add in the butter pieces and mix on medium-low speed to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse sand and the largest butter pieces are not much bigger than peas. Mix in the cold water on low speed just until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (This dough can be frozen for up to 2 months.) Remove from the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface.