Chicken Pot Pie

Has it really been four months since I last posted here? My goodness. Fret not, I have been cooking for my hubby and been trying out new recipes. Unfortunately, the taking pictures-writing descriptions- updating blog portion of it has not been easy at all. I guess it's low on the list of priorities with everything else that's been going on.

I've just finished up my first month of vacation and getting ready to start the second, so we'll see how much I can update by then. Tonight H came over for dinner and I tried out a recipe from my new "old" cookbook -- chicken pot pie. The recipe came from an old Betty Crocker cookbook I got from my aunt - it's "vintage" from a used bookstore, looks like it was published in the 1970's. She swears it's much better than the cookbooks that are published now because it's more home-cooking, with better ingredients. They're not afraid of butter and shortening, she says. :)

Anyway, this recipe tonight was so delicious -- Damon rated it one of his favorites. The only problem was, home cooking takes a while. So it's a good thing I'm on vacation.

The crust was good, but I think if the dough was chilled and less worked it would've been more flaky. It used shortening -- I used a Crisco shortening that's supposed to taste like butter. I am much more a fan of butter-based pie crusts, although I don't know if there's an answer to that age-old debate.

The filling was very simple -- start with a roux of flour, butter, salt and pepper, then add cooked chicken and a frozen veggie mix. I pan fried 4 chicken breasts in olive oil with salt and pepper for the recipe and it was yum.

Next time I'll go a little easy on the chicken since it didn't all fit! The picture above was half of the pot pie that was left over by the time we finished. I didn't expect to update so I didn't bother taking photos before the meal. I used the leftovers to make a couple of "mini" pot pies. I ran out of dough, though, so those just have a top crust, no bottom layer.