I grew up eating frozen pot pies. Banquet, never Swanson. Back in the days before microwaves, when you had to wait for the oven for how long? Nearly an hour? They were both a comfort and a convenience food, despite that wait. Now I make my own, and all the warm comfort is there and then some. And, to make it a bit more convenient, I generally use refrigerated pie crust. Feel free to make your own.
Ingredients:
-Boneless Chicken Tenders, a couple of pounds. The frozen stuff in a bag works fine for this.
-Pie Crust
-Potatoes, 4 or 5
-Carrots, 4 or 5
-Onion, 1 large or 2 small
-Celery, 2 or 3 ribs
-Frozen Peas, about a cup
6Sage, a nice-sized sprig of fresh or equivalent dry
-Butter, 3 or 4 tablespoons plus enough to butter the pie pan
-Flour. about 1/3 cup
-Chicken Stock, 2 to 3 cups
-Salt/Pepper
Directions:
Thaw the chicken and pat it dry. Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add the chicken sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
While the chicken is cooking, chop the vegetables. Slice the onion, celery and carrots. Dice the potatoes into small chunks.
Once the chicken is nice and brown on the bottom, turn it over and sprinkle it with flour and sage.
Stir it well, until the flour is absorbed by the butter and the chicken is well-coated.
Stir in the chicken stock and reduce the heat a bit. Let it cook for a few minutes then cut the chicken into smaller chunks if you like.
Add the vegetables and let it simmer for a bit, until the potatoes and carrots start to get tender.
While the chicken and vegetables cook, butter a pie pan and press in the bottom crust
Oops, I forgot to add the peas earlier so I stirred them in at this point. No matter, they’ll cook just fine once in the oven.
Spoon the chicken/vegetable mixture into the crust. I had plenty left, along with another crust I found in the fridge, so I made one without the top crust.
Add the top crust, seal the edges and cut some slits for ventilation. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, until the gravy is nice and bubbly and the crust is nicely browned.
The open version sure looked pretty.
Let it sit for a few minutes before serving.
Enjoy!