Chicken Pot Pie

So, here is the long anticipated chicken pot pie recipe. As mentioned, this one is significantly more work and time intensive than the curry, but it is sooooo worth it.

Ingredients:

10 oven safe bowls
Carrots - 4 cups coarsely chopped
Celery - 3 stalks finely chopped
Onion - 1 cup finely chopped
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Chicken Broth - 1 container (aka 32 oz)
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts - 2 pounds
Potatoes - 12 ounces by weight
Corn Starch - 4 Tablespoons
Puff Pastry - 1 sheet
Swiss cheese - 1 per bowl
Frozen Peas - 2 cups
Frozen Corn - 2 cups
Heavy Whipping Cream - 3/4 cup
Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon
Rosemary -1/2 teaspoon
Thyme -1/2 teaspoon
Basil - 1/2 teaspoon
Sage - 1/4 teaspoon
Tarragon - 1/4 teaspoon.


Steps:


1. Chop carrots, onions and celery and place into large pot
2. Add salt
3. Allow ingredients to sweat in pot until onions become translucent
4. Remove fat from chicken and cut into bite size pieces
5. Add chicken to veggies
6. Raise heat to medium high and "fry" chicken
7. Add Chicken Broth
8. Add potatoes
9. Add peas and corn
10. Add spices
11. Cook for 15 minutes on medium high heat and bring mixture to a boil
12. Reduce to low heat
13. Mix corn starch in a separate container with 1/2 cup of water
14. Slowly add corn starch mixture to large pot while stirring (mixture should thicken)
15. Simmer for 2-3 minutes
16. Add heavy whipping cream
17. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally for approx. 10 minutes
*****This is the time to do your taste testing, adding additional spices, making changes, etc*****
18. Cover and remove from heat.
19. Allow to cool
20. Refrigerate over night.



The next day:

1. Remove Puff Pastry from freezer and allow to thaw. (approx 45 minutes prior to use)
2. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
3. Portion mixture into oven safe bowls
4. Add 1 slice of swiss cheese to each bowl covering the mixture
5. Cut puff pastry to fit inside of each bowl and cover the cheese/mixture
6. Bake till golden brown on top. (approx 20-30 minutes with puff pastry puffed up)
7. Allow to cool before heating.

The food underneath will be hot. I like to move the puff pastry to the side a bit to allow the food to cool more.

Now the pictures!

The celery, carrots and onion into the large pot (Day 1, Step 1)

This is the best example of "translucent" we have. You can see how the onions are fairly see through.

(Day 1, Step 3)

Marc cleaning the chicken. Yes those are gloves, we like to protect against germs when dealing with raw meats  in the kitchen.

(Day 1, Step 4)

Measuring and preparing to add potatoes. (Day 1, Step 8)

The spices. (Day 1, Step 10)

Mixture pre-thickening, (Day 1, Step 12)

After adding the heavy whipping cream and corn starch 

(Day 1, Step 17)

I didn't take any pictures of us portioning it out. If your mixtures looks kinda like cement, and is very very thick the next day - that's ok. In fact, that's really good. I did, however, remember to snap pictures with my phone before eating this delicious wonderfulness.

With the puff pastry slid to the side.

And what it looks like underneath.

As you can see, the bowls are not very large. We use ramikens and each bowl makes a perfect individual serving. It is very filling. When using the ramikens, the above recipe makes about 10 servings. Using our oh-so-scientific method of calculating calories, we're approximating 492 calories in each serving. To reduce this, removing the slice of swiss cheese will subtract approximately 106 calories from each serving.