I have worked 15 consecutive days in the past two weeks, 70 hours in the past week alone, and I still have two days to go before an actual day off. All of this to say that I have not had a single moment to run by the grocery store and do some solid shopping.
This means that I am out of lunch meat, milk, eggs, bread, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. I am ashamed to say that my husband and I have mostly been grabbing meals on the go this week which, as it turns out, does not do wonders for our wallets or diets.
Regardless, after I got home from work today I had a huge craving for some home cooking! Somehow I mustered up some energy (must have been from my late afternoon iced coffee), rose from the couch and made my way to the fridge.
I opened the fridge, quickly shut it before I became too uninspired, and checked in the freezer.
While staring at my packed freezer of mystery meats and vegetables I grabbed a freeze pop, sugar helps me think, I noticed some frozen biscuits on the freezer door. This got me thinking about a recipe I remembered about quick biscuit topped chicken pot pies. Then I remembered the extra pie crust I had in the fridge from when I made Chocolate Chess Pie!
I quickly Googled recipes for Chicken Pot Pie and choose the Pillsbury Classic Chicken Pot Pie. This one has simple ingredients and great cooking temps and times. The items I didn’t have were: milk, and onions. I replaced the milk with heavy cream and just left out the onion.
My improvised recipe is below, something to note, I was only cooking for myself and I only had enough left over pie crust to fill one 16 ounce ramekin. This was a large meal for one person and could easily have been split if I had 2 – 8 ounce baking dishes.
Ingredients
- 2.5 small frozen/fresh chicken tenderloins
- 1.5 cups of frozen mixed vegatables, typically carrot, corn, peas (mine also had lima beans and green beans)
- 1 cup chicken stock, or 1 packet chicken bouillon prepared
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2-3 tablespoons flour
- Pie crust, either homemade or store bought from refridgerator section. I have a small baseball sized ball left over.
- & the following to taste:
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parsley
- Garlic Powder
- Ground Cayenne Pepper
- Texas Pete
- & 2 splashes of White Wine Vinegar
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 425 & butter your baking dish, for me it was a 16 oz ramekin.
In a medium saucepan cover frozen chicken tenderloins with water a place on medium high heat. Boil chicken until just cooked through. Remove and shred chicken, set aside.
While you are waiting for chicken to cook through place frozen vegetables in a bowl covered with hot water from your tap, they will defrost by the time you need them.
This is also a good time to roll out your pie crust and set the crust into your baking dish, making sure to get rid of any air bubbles under the crust. For now leave the over hang.
After your pie crust is ready, your chicken has cooked and vegetables are thawed it is time to assemble the filling. In a medium frying pan melt 2 tablespoons of butter add any seasonings here. Once butter has melted add in flour and whisk, you should create something that looks like a paste. Constatly whisk cooking through flour for 1-2 minutes being careful not to burn it.
Lower temp to medium and slowly add in 1 cup of stock. Whisk to create a thick and smooth sauce, add in heavy cream and let simmer to 1-2 minutes.
Add shredded chicken and drained vegetables, stir to combine and kill the heat.
*IMPORTANT* Taste your filling here, add in any extra splashes of hot sauce or dashes of salt and pepper. Not much is going to change between now and when it comes out of the oven so make sure you like it before you ruin a perfectly good pie crust!
Transfer to filling to your baking dish, I actually ended up with about 3/4 cup of extra sauce at this point, but all of my chicken and vegetable ended up in the dish. Did I mention this was a hearty meal?
Cover your pie with it’s top crust, pinch together the edges, crimping with a fork or folding however your heart desires. Cut an X, slits, or other design to allow the pie to release steam and transfer your pie into the oven.
Cook for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden brown.
I like to brush on some honey on the top crust in the last few minutes of baking just to add a little sweetness and give it a gorgeous color.
Let your pie sit for 5 minutes and don’t burn your mouth when you dig in!
How do you think this Fridge Challenge went? In my book it is Fridge = 0 Joanna = 1.
The Cookbook Corner 