Chicken Pot Pie

Oh yes. It was good.
This recipe is adapted from a recipe on the Food Network website.

About one and a half breasts of chicken.
One carrot.
One stalk of celery.
One small onion, halved and sliced.
Half a stick of butter.
One-quarter cup of flour.
Half a cup of milk.
Salt and pepper for seasoning.
Parsley.
Thyme.One more large carrot, chopped.
One-quarter cup of peas.
One can of flaky biscuits. (You'll only use half, but you can use the rest to make Mystery Biscuits.)
*Special note: You will need two ten-ounce ramekins for this recipe. Ramekins are round, white oven-safe dishes. You can see one in the top photo. I bought two at Fred Meyer's today for $5 each. I imagine you could make one big pot pie in a pie pan, were you so inclined, but I won't be held responsible if it doesn't work out the way you want it to.

Place your chicken in a large pot. Add cool water, salt, half your onion, a chopped carrot, and a chopped stalk of celery. Bring to a boil, and then reduce and simmer for half an hour to forty-five minutes. Remove the chicken, let cool, and slice into bite-size pieces.

While the chicken is cooling, preheat your oven to 400F and slice the rest of your onion. In a large skillet, melt your butter. (The original recipe called for six tablespoons of butter. I used five, but I think four is all you need.) Add the rest of your onion and sautée over medium heat for about ten minutes. Add your flour and cook for another minute while stirring. Stir in the milk. Stir in one cup of the chicken water or store-bought chicken stock (I used stock). Add the chicken. Stir in the carrot and peas and cook for about a minute. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, and thyme, to taste. (I also gave mine a nice shake of Lawry's seasoning salt.)
Spoon the mixture into your ramekins. Press two flaky biscuits together to form one large round biscuit. Press onto the top of the pie and seal the edges. Repeat for the other one.
Slice a vent in the top of the pie using a knife or fork, and place in your oven for 15-25 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbly. Let cool at least 5 minutes before serving, and keep in mind that you just pulled these out of a 400F oven. They're freaking hot. Tim and I put the ramekins on plates so we could eat.


And finally, a word of advice. These bad boys will want to bubble over and leak. Seal the edges of the pie very well, and then put your ramekins on a cookie sheet. That way, if they do leak, they won't cause a smoky, burning mess in your oven and set off your smoke detector (not like that happened to me or anything).

Super delightful, excellently tasty. Serve with Mystery Biscuits and a salad.

The boring stuff:
Serves two, but can be easily manipulated to serve more. You just need more ramekins.
Difficulty: 3.
Takes between sixty and ninety minutes, depending on how good a multi-tasker you are. I started cooking at 6:15 and we didn't eat until almost 8:00, but I was also waiting on Mystery Biscuits.

P.S. If someone in your house doesn't like peas or carrots or whatever, they can be added to each ramekin individually. It'll all cook in the oven, so it's totally kosher.