Dirty Dozen: Chicken Pot Pie

All the credit for this dish goes to my good friend Juile. When I was a new mom, she took me under her wing and showed me how to can peaches, introduced me to real vegetables, and was even brave enough to swap meals with me a few times a week for over a year (I still feel guilty about that nasty chicken-wild rice-green-bean slurry. Julie, if you are reading this, I am will be sorry until my death for trying a new recipe on you without testing it first. We're still friends, right? Right?). Anyway, this dish was one of my favorites from her and I've made it a main stay in my pantry, and it is one of the dirty dozen I mentioned in my first post. I highly, highly recommend using the homemade cream soup for this. The flavor is subtle yet surprising, and I mix it up in big batches so I always have some on hand.

Chicken Pot Pie

Filling

2 medium frozen chicken breast pieces

1 Can cream of Chicken or 1/4 cup Cream Soup mix with 1 cup cold water*

2 cups water with two cubes bullion

1 bag frozen peas and carrots

½ tsp tarragon

½ tsp parsley

½ tsp sage          

½ tsp rosemary

Biscuit Topping

1½  C flour

3½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ C  melted butter

1½  C Buttermilk **

Directions
Preheat oven to 350⁰

Boil chicken in water/bullion mix until cooked through and set aside. Do not drain the water, as this is the base for your filling. If you are using the homemade soup, mix it with 1 cup cold water before whisking into the base. Stir over medium heat until mixture thickens. If you are using canned soup instead, just dump it in and stir it up.  Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces and add it along with the frozen peas and carrots to the base. Remove from heat.

Mix biscuits.

Pour filling into a greased 9x13 pan and dallop with biscuit mix. It doesn't matter if it is lumpy, as it will even out while baking, but try to distrubute evenly so the top is mostly covered.

Bake at 350⁰ for 1 hour.

**If you don’t have butter milk on hand, you can substitute using plain yogurt or 1½ C Milk mixed with 2 T lemon juice or vinegar. Let it stand for 5 minutes to thicken up before mixing in.

This recipe freezes really well. To reheat at 350⁰ until warm (about an hour).

Cream of Whatever You Want It To Be Soup

½ C  nonfat dry milk

2 T cornstarch

2 ts chicken bouillon

¼ tsp onion powder

⅛ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp basil

¼ tsp thyme

¼ tsp white pepper

9 oz cold water

Heat to boil, stir frequently. For cream of celery use ¼ cup celery, for cream of mushroom use ½ C mushrooms.

And just because this post isn't long enough, here's the measurements for a batch of ten:

Cream Soup Batch of Ten

5 C  nonfat dry milk

1½ C cornstarch

⅓ C chicken bouillon

2½ tsp onion powder

1 ¼ tsp garlic powder

2½tsp basil

2½ tsp thyme

2½ tsp white pepper

Mix ingredients and divide into 10 Ziploc bags (a heaping ½ Cup for each bag). Seal and store until you are ready to use them! When you are ready to use one, just mix with 9 oz. cold water and heat to a boil.