Dreamy Creamy Chicken Pot Pie

Marie Callender's ain't got nothin' on this chicken pot pie! As I am sure you've all noticed by now I love comfort food, yep guilty as all get out, if it's rich, creamy, fatty and full of delicious chunky veggies and meats I'm all over it! Here is another great recipe that is super simple, delicious and as always feeds my family for the whole week or can be sliced individually and placed in the freezer for lunches.

We Were fans of Marie Callender's pot pies for years. Kyle and I would buy the 10pk from Sams club and eat them all within a month! Well, after the Sams club obsession wore off due to high club prices and our tendency to buy nothing buy crap foods in really big bags I was craving a great pot pie that would stay creamy and not dry out, like a lot of home made pies seem to do and here it is!

Dreamy Creamy Chicken Pot Pie


Ingredients:

• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts; fat trimmed and cut into small cubes
• 1 regular size bag of frozen veggie mix. (I prefer a mix with carrots, corn, green beans, lima beans, and peas)
• 3 medium celery stalks; washed and sliced
• 1/2 small yellow onion; finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves; minced
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• A couple dashes of dried ground mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt; or to your liking (I never measure dry ingredients unless I'm baking treats & goodies)
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 2 and 1/2 cans chicken broth
• 1 cup half and half
• 2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust. (Pillsbury has them in the refrigerated section by the biscuits)

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees (425 if using a regular pie pan, see directions below for what I use).

Place cubed chicken, frozen veggie mix, celery, a dash of salt and pepper and 1 can of chicken broth in a sauce pan and add enough water to cover the mix. Boil on medium high heat for 15 minutes or a little longer if needed until chicken is no longer pink. Drain mix in a large colander and set aside and rinse the pan out.

In that same pan melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Cook on medium high heat until onions are barely transparent. Slowly stir in the flour, salt, pepper, ground mustard, and celery seed. Cook stirring frequently for about 3 minutes then slowly whisk in 1 and 1/2 cans of chicken broth and 1 cup of half and half; stirring frequently until mixture becomes slightly thick. Remove from heat and set aside.

I have used regular pie tins in the past with this recipe and it's great however with almost ALL my kitchen accessories in storage at the moment all I had on hand was a white round 2qt baking dish and honestly we think the pie baked in this dish is so much better because it didn't overflow the pan!

So with that said spray the baking dish with oil and place one of the crusts in the bottom of the dish forming it up the sides of the dish and carefully squishing the edges up around the top of the rim. Pour the chicken mixture into the dish/crust spreading it out evenly. Pour the gravy over the top of the chicken mixture using a fork to lightly "fluff" the mixture so the gravy seeps into all the open spaces and barely covers the top of the chicken mixture. I like to save some of the extra gravy for all my leftovers! Place the second crust over the top sealing the edges together all the way around. Using a sharp knife place 4 slits in the top crust.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes keeping an eye out for potential burning. Like I mentioned above if you're using a regular pie pan you'll need to bake at 425 degrees but for the baking dish that's too hot and you'll over cook your crust before the pie reaches adequate temperature. I made sure that my digital thermometer read 165 degrees before removing from the oven and serving.