RECIPE - Simple(r) Chicken Pot Pie

 Simple(r) Chicken Pot Pie

Recipe courtesy of Heather McCroan

Ingredients

• Frozen pie crust

• 2 tbsp oil

• 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables (thawed)

• 1 onion, diced small

• 2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1” cubes

• 3 tbsp all purpose flour

• ½ tsp dried thyme

• ⅛ tsp turmeric

• ¼ cup heavy whipping cream

• 3 cups chicken stock

• Salt and Pepper to taste

• Egg mixed with 1 tbsp of water (egg wash)

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees and place one pie crust into bottom of pie pan.

2. Meanwhile, heat up oil in large skillet and add vegetables, onion, and chicken until chicken is cooked and vegetables soften, 8-10 minutes.

3. Once oven is heated, cook bottom crust in oven for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 400 degrees.

4. Add flour, turmeric, and thyme to chicken and vegetables, mix,

5. Slowly add heavy whipping cream and chicken stock to allow flour to dissolve into liquid, stirring constantly until thick sauce forms.

6. Add salt and pepper to taste.

7. Pour into pie crust, top with second crust, brush crust with egg wash, bake for 10 minutes or until crust is sufficiently browned for your taste.

8. If you don’t let this rest before serving it will be piping hot, but won’t ruin the flavor!

Long Story

I was watching The Pioneer Woman and she had a recipe for deconstructing chicken pot pie where she made it in under 16 minutes.  This was fascinating to me because I love chicken pot pie, but if you make it from scratch you are talking hours of prep.  And really, half the time I don’t have a plan, I just want chicken pot pie on a cold day.  So I decided to combine her recipe with some hacks of my own to reduce some of my workload and take advantage of some of her methods.  I didn’t necessarily save any time, I didn’t track it either because I was kind of putting it together as I cooked, but it is still easy and simple, and semi-homemade.

What I Used

Great Value 9” pie crust, 2 count

Birds Eye Steam Freash frozen mixed vegetables

Perdue Free Range boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon Roast Chicken

3 cups of water

RECIPE - Delicious InstantPot Beef Stew

This recipe is a lot for a 6 quart Instant Pot, and may overfill it.  So you may consider reducing some of the ingredients (like the vegies), precooking the vegies, or using a larger pot.

I looked over a recipe for short rib beef stew and then made this up on the fly. So this is not necessarily for beginners who need it all planned out.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 lbs stew meat
• 2 tbsp better than bouillon beef
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup sherry
• 1 cup red wine
• 3 large red potatoes (1.5-2" chunks)
• 8 oz baby carrots (whole)
• 16 oz baby bella mushrooms halved or quartered
• 2 large onions (chunked)
• 1.5 tsp thyme leaves
• 1 tsp ground sage
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Toss meat in flour.
2. Either in the Instant Pot or a separate pan, pan sear the beef in small batches, 2-3 minutes tossing about halfway through, to brown some of the sides.  You should still see pink, do not cook all the way through.  Remove beef and place in Instant Pot.
3. If you wish to deepen the flavor you can sauté the onions until they are slightly translucent or the mushrooms (this will actually reduce the amount of water and make more room in the Instant Pot.
4. Add all ingredients to the Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 60 min. Salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

I used cooking wine, which is already salty, so I didn't add any salt and it needed quite a bit for my taste.

There are three ways to thicken the broth and I describe the flour method above:

1) toss beef in 1/4 cup flour before pan searing

2) add 3-4 tbsp of corn starch to enough cold water to dissolve it and stir in after cooking (add more if not thick enough, this way keeps the broth more transparent, however, after reheating it will not stay thickened)

3) mash up some of the potatoes after cooking.