Do you see anything wrong with this picture that a 50K kitchen
renovation couldn't cure? I don't either, and I really really would LOVE a new kitchen. It's on the dream board, but I've not won the lotto yet. That's not what I meant anyway. This kitchen is too clean. It looks like food could happen here, but nothing is...yet. I'm going to trash it and FINALLY, yes FINALLY!, make CHICKEN PIE!

We need pie crust! You can get it at the store, or you can do like me, make your own from scratch. It's really not that hard to do with a foolproof recipe. I happen to have access to one of those. You'll find it on Suzanne McMinn's blog, Chickens in the Road, at http://www.suzannemcminn.com. Suzanne is a romance writer and she lives on a farm in the hills of West Virginia. Check out her Foolproof Pie Crust recipe, and don't turn your nose up that it has vinegar in it. Vinegar is the "foolproof" secret and you'll never taste it once it's baked. Once you get your dough into a ball like this, it must be wrapped in plastic and put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes before you attempt to roll it out. Did I mention that I make little pies and freeze them? I'm an empty-nester, so making a whole pie would be a lot of waste. I make them in small individual sized cake pans. The batch makes a dozen small pies, or three regular sized pies.

You can put vegetables in the pies if you like, I just prefer my vegetables on the side. Usually the night before pie-making I rotisserie two chickens and take the meat from the bones.

Filling Recipe:

Meat from two cooked chickens, chopped
2 Cans Chicken Broth (or homemade stock)
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Cup whole milk (I use half and half)
2 TBSP Flour
2 TBSP butter
1/2 Knorr Chicken Bouillon cube
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp crushed rosemary

In a large stockpot, melt the butter and make a roux with the flour. Do not brown the roux. Once the flour is dissolved in the butter add the chicken broth, soup, milk and bouillon. Simmer until smooth and thickened, add cooked chicken and seasonings. Keep in mind that the broth (if you used canned) and the bouillon have lots of sodium in them. Taste before you add salt. Otherwise, you may get it too salty!

Here we go, finished pies ready for the freezer, with a ball of pie crust left over. I freeze them solid on the cookie sheet first, and then package them in ziplock freezer bags. They're so handy to have around and so good!

As you can see, a couple of these didn't make it to the freezer!
After craving chicken pie for weeks now, I just couldn't freeze them all. Yum!