Chicken Pot Pie (aka, Cleaning out the Freezer)

So, if you're anything like me, you buy all sorts of ingredients to make recipes, use half the bag, and then shove it in the refrigerator or freezer, never to be seen again until eight months down the road when it's so freezer-burned you can't tell if you froze a snowball or some food. In an effort to be frugal since we are a single-income family, I've been trying to avoid wasting food like this, so I almost make it a game to figure out what I can make with ingredients in the house.


Tonight's adventure was the miraculous Chicken Pot Pie. Chicken Pot Pie is one of those things where there doesn't really need to be a recipe. You just throw in whatever you can find and "put a lid on it". I started digging (deeper...and deeper...) in the freezer and the refrigerator and found this:

A half-empty bag of frozen corn

A half-empty bag of frozen peas

A half-empty bag of frozen french-style green beans

Leftovers from a chicken I roasted (less than 4 days old, I promise)

2 cans of low-fat (huh? what was I thinking...) cream of mushroom soup. Well, those were in the pantry, but same difference.

I threw these all into a mixing bowl, still frozen, mixed it all together, added 3/4 cup of milk, 1/2 tsp of thyme, and salt and pepper until I thought it tasted good, then proceeded put this filling into a casserole dish.


My "lid" was more of a pastry-topping than a biscuit-topping - made up of:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup shortening

1/4 cup (plus extra) cold water

If you've never made any sort of pastry crust before, you cut the shortening into the flour until it resembles small crumbs using a pastry blender, then toss the mixture together with the water using a fork until it resembles a dough. Roll it out to fit over whatever casserole dish you're using, and cut three large slits in.


Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes (ish, maybe a little more).


And out comes a deeeelicious, heart-warming meal, which by the way, could easily feed six people.

And my friends...this took me less than 15 minutes to assemble. Throw in carrots, mushrooms, whatever else you can find - be creative. 


And for heaven's sake, clean out your freezer. It will thank you. (Generally in the form of ice-cream that wouldn't fit in before.)