Weekly Review – Chicken Pot Pie

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Who reviews Chicken Pot Pie?

This girl. In an effort to save money and reduce my waste of food, I decided to not buy any more items until I eat everything in my freezer first. How often do you buy frozen foods even though you already have a freezer full? There’s no way I am the only one. In my efforts to conserve, I took inventory. It turns out, I had all the fixens for a chicken pot pie.

I looked up several recipes and decided there really is very little difference among the ways to make this recipe. So, before heading to work in my dining room, dressed in business on top and party on the bottom outfit, I removed the 3 chicken breasts from the freezer. I also found a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, a few half or less than half full bags of frozen carrots, sweet corn and green beans. Chicken pot pie is really just a chicken stew, so you can put in it whatever you like. I placed it all in the sink, and let the room temperature do its thing.

Freezer Burn

When food is kept too long in the freezer, it will eventually become freezer burned. Typically, this occurs when food is not wrapped in air tight containers and it is exposed to dehydration and oxidation. But, I’ve experienced food becoming freezer burned when it’s in the freezer for over 6 months prior to cooking. In some instances, I will find food in my freezer well over a year old.

After the 3 random chicken breasts thawed, I noticed the edges were slightly discolored and not very “fresh” looking. I decided since the chicken was going to be hidden in a pie shell, I would just boil it. I then trimmed off the edges that were bad. Because the 3 pieces were different sizes and thickness, it took from 11 to 30 minutes for them to cook. I had to keep my eye on it and keep checking the pieces individually. Once one was cooked through, I shredded it with a fork. The outer discolored edges were tossed. No one likes a rough, chewy chicken pot pie.

Burnt veggies too

All the frozen vegetables I used had freezer burn to some extent. I combined the various bags of vegetables, opened them and rinsed them all in a kitchen strainer. This removed all the ice chunks and made it easier to pick out the pieces that were definitely ruined. The rest were salvageable. This is how we weed out the good from the bad, and eat what we have.

The shell

I make little from actual scratch. I am a busy working woman. Since Pillsbury mastered the pre-made pie shell, who am I to compete? I buy the 2 pack pie shells/crusts for 9″ pie pans. I happened to have one in my refrigerator, and a box in the freezer. Of course, once the freezer shell thawed, I saw it too, was freezer burned. As I attempted to unroll it, discolored as it was, started to crumble. That could not be salvaged. But what was I to do with only one pie shell? I had one for the bottom, but needed to top it off? Thanks to my recent crescent roll addiction, I had a tube of that in my refrigerator. That became my top crust.

The How To

My recipe for chicken pot pie is not exact, but here we go:

1 Small Onion – chop

Butter – 1 or 2 TBS

Frozen Mixed vegetables – 1 pkg (plus any other frozen veggie concoction)

1 can of cream of chicken soup

Bone broth (I poured into the empty soup can as measurement)

1 can of chicken gravy -15 oz

2 Pie shells 9″ for top and bottom

2 cups shredded chicken

Chop the onion to the chunks of your liking. In a pot, melt the butter and add the onions. Cook until almost translucent, about 3-5 minutes. Add your frozen vegetables and mix it all together. In a separate bowl, dump the soup and mix in the bone broth. After mixed well, pour onto vegetables and continue to cook to warm. Add the chicken gravy. Add spices to your liking. I used several dashes of pepper, a smidge of salt, about a 1/2 tsp garlic powder and a few shakes of unsalted seasoning.

Add your shredded chicken and stir it all together using a bamboo or wooden spoon. That just makes it feel homemade. Pour vegetable mixture into pie shell once you feel you mixed it all together enough. Attach the top pie shell and cook at 425 degrees roughly 40 minutes, but check it often after 30 min. Below is a picture of the chicken pot pie before topped.

Remember I said I didn’t have a top shell and had to use crescent roll dough? I opened the tube, separate all the triangles and pieced them together for the top of the pie.

Mistake

Looking back, the process would have been smoother if I had pre-cooked the bottom crust while heating the vegetables in the pot. As you can see, my pie was overloaded. This made the cooking process last closer to an hour as the bottom crust would not cook fast enough. But since my top were crescent rolls, I had to place aluminum foil to keep it from burning after about 11 minutes of cooking time. So keep your eye on it if you use this method.

Bottom Line

I call this post a review of chicken pot pie because it was a test of creativity. I give this recipe two thumbs up! Because of all the gravy I used, I couldn’t even taste any residual freezer burn flavor! I’m sure after reading all of this, you are chomping at the bit for me to cook for you!

I hope you enjoyed this review and will make your own version soon. Let me know how it goes for you! Leave me a note and tell me any of your cooking secrets or handy substitutions!

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