Two for one

Today I was culinary genius. Or something. I have been craving pot pie for a while and decided that with all the left over chicken I'd go ahead and make one for today. Searched lots of recipes and decided on one, with modifications of course. Made crust from scratch, something of my Grandma Howards specialty. I remember only apple pies from her crust but her recipe worked well for my chicken pot pie.

Grandma Howard's pie crust
3 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups of Crisco (butter flavor works best)
.5-.75 cup of cold water
Mix salt and flour.
Cut Crisco into flour and salt. A fork works well if there isn't a pastry cutter avaliable.
Add .5 cup of cold water and mix with fork. This should form a ball. If the dough isn't shaping add a little water at a time just until ball forms.
Split dough in two and quickly roll out each half using flour dusted surface and rolling pin.
(Careful not to over handle the dough as it loses it's texture, consistency and deliciousness)

This is for a two crust (top and bottom) pie but there's always a little left over.

I baked my pie in a deep dish pan. I put down the bottom crust and baked it for about 5 mins at 450 then let the crust rest while I did the rest:

Chicken Pot Pie
(Modifications included)

Pie crust for top and bottom (see above for recommended pie crust)
2 cups chicken broth (which I made using bullion cubes and seasoning)
1 small chicken, cooked (I already had cooked chicken so I just chopped it up roughly)
1 onion, diced
4 carrots, chopped
1 small can (8 oz or so) corn
2 stalks celery, chopped
A handful of fresh green beans, diced
Fresh garlic to taste, minced
6 tbsps melted butter
6 tbsps flour
salt, pepper, season salt, paprika, garlic powder to taste

Have a deep dish crust lined pie dish ready.

In medium saucepan, add one cup broth to onions, carrots, celery, garlic and green beans. Cook over medium heat about 10 mins. Add canned corn to pot and simmer another 10 minutes or so. Remove from heat when veggies are to desired tenderness (they don't get much softer while baking in pie - we prefer slightly crunchy veggies so I simmered the veggie mix about 15 mins or until carrots were soft but not anywhere near mushy).

In a small saucepan, melt butter and add flour over low heat, continually stirring about one or two minutes. Slowly add remaining cup of chicken broth and cook seven to ten minutes more, or until thickened.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Remove chicken meat from bones, roughly chop and add to vegetable mixture, then blend in thickened stock. Season and pour into pastry-lined deep dish pan and cover with crust.

Slit air vents for steam and bake ten minutes, then lower heat to 350°. and continue baking 20 minutes until crust is golden brown.

I basically spent my day in the kitchen. Word to the wise this is a time consuming recipe. Think at least two hours, with picking the meat from the carcass, washing, peeling and chopping veggies, making the crust and so on. A person could purchase pie crust and a frozen bag of chopped veggies and even cooked and cubed chicken from the grocery but I don't think it'd have quite the same flavor as this because all the veggies were fresh (minus the corn because I couldn't find any on the cob) and David said "You have to blog about this! It's better than Marie Callendars!" We occasionally purchase the frozen Marie Callendar pot pies for David's "back up lunches" for the days we don't have leftovers and we both really like them. I was actually afraid, as I labored over the pie, that it wouldn't be as good as a Marie Callendars. ;-)

Since I had pie dough left over I figured I would reallllly make David's night and made a small chocolate pie. We are going to garnish it with chopped pecans and coconut when it's done chilling in the fridge. MMMMmmmm. I miss having time to cook. I haven't had time/energy to do much cooking lately because I have been so absorbed in school. I got up extra early and was really productive today although I didn't finish all my school work I have a happy husband. That's gotta count for something right? I baked the crust about 15 mins or so on 350. Pulled it out of the oven, sprinkled a tiny bit of sugar on it and let it cool. Then I filled it and into the fridge for at least an hour.