last bit of orange (chicken pot pie)
At the risk of flaming out my orange theme this week, I’ve got one last photo/recipe for you. Thankfully, it features only a bit of the color orange and will hopefully allow me to gracefully segue to other topics!
I’ve been making this quick and easy chicken pot pie for years and it’s one of my kids’ first requests when I switch to cool weather cooking (we don’t make it in spring or summer). For this pie (and my husband’s delicious fried rice), I roasted a chicken one afternoon. The kids were back from school, doing homework with their friends, Alex and Kyle.
All four boys kept commenting on the incredible aroma coming from the oven. Since I didn’t need the skin for either recipe, I decided to let them devour it right off the chicken. Their excitement was absolutely adorable! None of them had ever been able to attack a whole chicken just for the crispy parts; it was a definite hit and they ate every morsel of skin.
Later, I diced about two cups worth of breast meat for the chicken pot pie and quickly blanched a mixture of diced green beans, potatoes and carrots (fresh, not frozen or canned). To the chicken and vegetables, I added one can of cream of chicken soup mixed with half a can’s worth of milk plus some salt and freshly cracked pepper. I poured this into a pre-made pie crust (remember, I am not a baker) and brushed the top with a bit of melted butter.
I usually bake this pie for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees, making sure the top crust turns a nice, golden brown. In my opinion, it’s best to let the pie stand 5 minutes or so before cutting.
P.S. Both Kyle and Alex sampled the leftover pie the next day and pronounced it excellent!
I just made almost exactly the same pot pie. It’s hands down my kids’ favorite dish. They started eating so much of it that I’m now making 2 pies at a time. I use fresh broccoli and carrots in mine, and I don’t roast the chicken. But I think I will next time per your suggestion. My kids love helping me with the crust. We use Trader Joes (our favorite premade pie crust). Since they were very little they’ve been playing with the extra crust while I’m finishing up with the rest of the pie and then we’d decorate the top of the pie with their kneaded creations. Hands down a favorite in our family.
Every year after Thanksgiving, my step-dad will take all the leftovers and make a turkey pot pie with them (often throwing in some other veggies as needed). So. Yum. =)