Today's meal is brought to you by a suggestion from the husband. I didn't have anything planned and I asked him for a request. So he threw out Chicken Pot Pie. Uh, okay. A quick search on
foodnetwork.com brought up a lot of recipes, all which appeared very difficult and required individual bowls for your pot pies (which I do not own). I finally found an
easy chicken pot pie recipe (yes, easy was in the title - lucky me). The husband was not at all pleased that this recipe was all in one skillet, but hey I'm the cook so I can do what I want (insert picture of me sticking my tongue out). I did grant him one request. The recipe does not call for potatoes, but I added them because he loves them. I also didn't add any onions.
Since I'm the master chef that I am, I didn't follow the instructions to a tee. I chopped up my chicken first and then cooked it. I figured it would cook faster that way. I couldn't find Sweet Paprika, there was regular and smoked, but no sweet. So, I seasoned my chicken with poultry seasoning, pepper, and my go to seasoning Slap-Yo-Mama. I fried it up and put it to the side. I cubed one potato and boiled it for about 15 minutes and drained them. I decided I would add the potatoes at the same time I added the chicken to the recipe.
 |
| Chicken |
 |
| Potatoes |
Then it was time to cook up the frozen peas and carrots. I cooked those up and added the garlic (Tip: if you ever want to just make it smell like you're cooking up something good, fry up some garlic it made my kitchen smell yummy). I was supposed to sprinkle in the flour and let it dissolve in the "juices", but I didn't have any juices, so I added some water.
 |
| Peas, carrots, and flour |
I added my chicken stock per the instructions and waited for it to thicken before I added the heavy cream. Does this look like it's thickening?
 |
| Chicken Stock added |
I waited a while and still no thickness. In a panic, I added some more flour. I failed to sprinkle it in, so I ended up with some nice little flour balls in the mixture. Let's hope those cook out. I went ahead and added the heavy cream hoping that would thicken it, but no such luck. Ah well, on to my crust. I pulled out my store bought crust and then quickly realized that it was going to be a little tough getting it out of the foil pan it comes in. As I pulled it out, it begin to tear and it didn't seem like it was going to cover my entire pan. Uh, what now? Master Chef to the rescue! I balled two crusts together and made them into one. Ahh, perfection... not quite, but this should do.
 |
| Crust out of the pan |
 |
| Ball of Dough! |
 |
| I'm the next Betty Crocker! |
I added my chicken and potatoes to my creamy, but not thick mixture. Now my instructions said I could tuck my excess edges inside the pan. That wasn't happening for me, so extra crust was folded over.
 |
| Chicken and potatoes added |
 |
| Martha Stewart eat your heart out! |
Into the oven it went. As I watched it bake, I noticed that some of the filling was spilling out (now I have to clean the oven). I also realized that I left out the last two steps. I didn't cut slits in the crust and I didn't brush the crust with egg wash. My bad. Fifteen minutes later (the recipe says 20, but it looked done to me), we have a Chicken Pot Pie...
 |
| Can you see the filling that oozed out? |
It's not the prettiest and I have to admit it was a little bland. Apparently, my Slap-Yo-Mama is not as salty as I thought because the pie needed salt. Maybe I shouldn't have used the unsalted chicken stock, but I thought it would be healthy. Next time, I'll have to figure out how to get the filling thicker because it was a little soupy.
 |
| My plating skills need work. |
A couple of shakes of salt and everything was all better. So, Chicken Pot Pie + Salt = Success.
