Chicken Pot Pie: Must Have Comfort Food!

Since we went off of daylight savings time, I like the fact that it doesn’t take until 8:30 in the morning for the sun to actually be up in the sky, but I hate the fact that by 5:00 in the afternoon it is nearly dark. It makes me want to curl up in a ball until spring. Since I know I can’t do that, it makes me crave all things comforting. Sitting in front of the fire with a cozy blanket, drinking steaming hot tea by the gallon, and eating my favorite comfort foods.

This week I was really craving some comfort food, so I decided that I would make individual chicken pot pies. It wouldn’t be just any pot pie, though, I wanted to make it a little special. So for mine, I added white wine to the sauce and seasoned it with herbes de’ provence. I will admit that I did cheat on the pie crust, I used refrigerated, but I am severely challenged when it comes to making pie crust. I’m just not very good at it, although it is on my list of things that I would like to master, so maybe someday….

Individual Chicken Pot Pies

1 1/4 lb package boneless skinless chicken breast
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 large carrots, sliced
2 large stalks celery, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 medium red potatoes, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tsp herbes de’ provence
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup white wine
3 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
1 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper
1 package refrigerated pie crust
egg wash

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Chop all of your veggies and cut your chicken up into bite size pieces.

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium high heat in a dutch oven or large skillet. Once oil is hot, add chicken and season with salt and pepper. Saute until chicken is no longer pink. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.

Add remaining tbsp of olive oil to pan and reduce heat to medium. Add carrots, celery, onion and potatoes to the pan. Add Herbes de’ Provence and bay leaf and saute for about 4 minutes and then add garlic and saute for about another minute, until onions are translucent. Season with a little more salt and pepper.

Add butter to vegetables. Once butter is melted, add flour and stir to coat all of the vegetables.

Add wine and combine well with vegetables. Then add chicken stock, stirring constantly to incorporate well.

Add milk to mixture and stir in. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened. Then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, until potatoes are tender.

Once potatoes are tender, add chicken back in and peas.

Spoon chicken mixture into 4 – 2 cup ramikens.

Sprinkle a little flour on a counter or wood cutting board. Unroll 1 pie crust.

Put a ramikin in the middle of piecrust and cut around it with about a 1 inch border (I found that a pizza cutter works really well).

Take the remaining dough and roll it out again and cut out crust for the second ramiken in the same fashion. Repeat the procedure with the remaining ramikens with the second pie crust.

Brush each crust with egg wash (take one egg and beat it with 1-2 tbsp water) and make some slits in crust with a knife. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Serve immediately.