Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Stew:
(Disclaimer: These measurements change every time I make this, and I really don’t have a clue about how much I really use. These are guesses, based on my memory.)
Peel and cube: 4 large potatoes, 4-6 carrots. Dice 1 medium to large onion and 2 stalks of celery. Place vegetables in large pot and add enough water just to cover. Add 3 cubes chicken bouillon, 1 tblsp parsley and 1 tsp poultry seasoning. When vegetables are just tender, add 2 cups (or more) diced, cooked chicken and 1 cup (or more) frozen peas. Whisk together 2 cups milk and 1/3 cup flour and stir into vegetable mixture. Cook until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat. (If you don’t like or have peas, you can add green beans whenever you want to in the process. I add them earlier than I would the peas so they can cook longer.)

If you want to make a baked pot pie with a biscuit type crust:
Place chicken stew into a large pan (9x13 or whatever it fits into). Preheat oven to 375.
Make biscuits as follows:
Mix 1 ¾ cup flour (white or brown or mixed), 2 tsp baking powder, ¾ tsp salt, ¼ tsp soda. Cut in 1/3 cup shortening. Mix in ¾ cup buttermilk. Knead gently till dough forms a ball. Roll out to ½ inch thickness and cut into squares with a knife or pizza cutter. (I don’t do round biscuits, because of two things: it saves a lot of time, and the dough shouldn’t be handled more than necessary.) Place biscuits on top of stew and bake for 15-20 minutes or until biscuits are browning. (This baking time assumes that the stew is still hot.)

If you want to have pot pie with a pastry crust, just use your favorite pie dough, and bake as a pie. To be honest, I’ve only done that about once or twice, but I can tell you who knows how to do it very well! Rachel Ramer brought us 3 chicken pies when Aimee and Sierra were babies and they were sooo good. (She told me the crust was made with real butter.) And when Larissa was born, Arlene May brought us this massive deep-dish pie with a beautifully flaky crust and it was also very, very good. So, they know how!

If you want to be able to choose if your biscuits are in the stew or on your plate with butter and honey, then bake the biscuits on a cookie sheet and just keep the stew hot on the stove top. I roll them slightly thicker than ½ inch when I don’t bake them on the stew and only bake them for about 12 minutes. (And you’d better double the recipe!)