Things have been a little bit crazy here in the Boston/Cambridge area this week, but are thankfully starting to get back to normal. I wanted to make Aunt Josette's cookies during my unexpected day-off-work / governor-mandated-lockdown, but didn't have all of the ingredients (and couldn't go get them, either. That's what a lockdown will do). I ended up making a banana bread instead with an old banana that I found in the freezer. I should have spent the time writing this post, though, since we actually made this recipe a few days ago, but I spent more time than I should have just watching the news (again, that's what a lockdown will do to you).
Aunt Kitty sent along, in her words, "two easy, but yummy recipes that we liked and the boys did, too." Sounds good to me! One is Cornbread Deluxe, and the other is the subject of today's post: Chicken Pie. Now, y'all know that I don't cook a lot of meat, so I was a bit intimidated by the first ingredient: 1 small whole chicken.
I'm fine with touching it and stuff, but I am horrible at carving or getting the meat off the bone and always end up leaving much more behind than I should. There was the additional concern of not thinking that any of my pots would hold a small whole chicken, since I wasn't really sure how big a small whole chicken is. So, long story short, I ended up buying a package of chicken breasts and using those instead. Clearly, the con with that plan is that you don't get any dark meat, but this is not that much of a con for me. But a major pro in this recipe is that it calls for a whole package of frozen mixed veggies - now that is right up my alley!
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| Look at all those veggies! |
I'm sure no one has ever accused Aunt Kitty of being a liar, and I am not about to start. As promised, this was super easy to pull together, and would be even easier if you had some leftover chicken that needed to be used up (or turkey, after Thanksgiving). Chicken and veggies are tossed in a baking dish, covered with a mixture of cream of celery soup and broth, and topped with a quick biscuit crust.
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| The makings for the biscuit topping, minus the milk. |
The recipe calls for self-rising flour in the biscuit crust, which I didn't have and didn't want to buy just for one recipe. Turns out you can make your own self-rising flour pretty easily using all ingredients that I did have on hand - success! To make the 1 cup necessary for this recipe, mix together 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and enough flour to make 1 cup. To make the crust, mix the self-rising flour with 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of milk or buttermilk. I melted the butter, since that seemed easiest, but I suppose you could also cut it into the flour and then add the milk the way you would if you were actually making biscuits.
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| Ready to eat! |
I wasn't sure what size baking dish to cook this in, and started with my 9-inch pie dish. Then I added more veggies than the recipe called for (oops!) and realized that the dish was too full to add the rest of the ingredients without spilling over. So, I ended up transferring the whole mixture to a 9x13 dish. I think this actually worked out in the end, though, since it mixed up everything a little better than I had originally. Once I had the mixture in a big enough pan, I spooned on the topping and popped it in the oven.
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| Matt, serving himself. |
And it was tasty! There were enough veggies to satisfy a Becky, and enough chicken to satisfy a Matt, so in the end it worked out well. It even reheated well - I put it back in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes or so and we enjoyed it as leftovers as well. Thanks, Aunt Kitty!
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| We had a side of roasted broccoli - yum! |
Aunt Kitty's Chicken Pie
serves 6
1 small whole chicken
1 can cream of celery soup
1 package frozen veggies or 1 can of Veg-all
For the crust:
1 cup self-rising flour (or substitute, see above)
1 stick of butter
1 cup milk or buttermilk
Cook chicken, save 1 1/2 cups broth. In baking dish, add chicken pieces and veggies (I added them frozen and it was fine), and salt and pepper to taste. Mix together soup and broth, add to chicken/veggies. Mix together crust, pour over chicken/veggies. Bake at 425 for 30-40 minutes til brown.
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