Here is one of the things that I used the chicken and broth from the chicken pictorial I posted the other day.

Chicken Broth

Anyhow, my chicken and broth were put to use last night to make chicken pot pies. This will be a pie without bottom crust, with a puffed pastry top crust.

We do both puffed and normal crust pot pies, with and without a bottom crust.

You can vary the vegetables in your pie to meet your preference.

We do them as large pies and single serving pies like these.

Chicken Pot Pie (Makes 4 individual serving pies):

You'll need:

1 cup shredded cooked chicken
1 pint chicken broth
1 cup frozen whole kernel corn
1 cup frozen green peas
1 medium potato, peeled and cubed 3/4 inch pieces
1 large carrot peeled and cubed (maybe 1/2 cup)
1/2 stalk maybe 3 Tablespoons celery - diced into small pieces
2 Tablespoons chopped onion
3 Tablespoons unsalted Butter
2 Tablespoons AP flour
1 package - 2 sheets puffed pastry

salt, black pepper and powdered thyme, depending on flavor of broth

Suitable baking container(s) for the pies - I did not use the two green ones posted - instead, used 4 smaller casserole dishes. This recipe was sufficient for the two shown, or the four smaller dishes I will show later.

After cleaning and dicing the vegetables, into the pot they go with chicken broth (no seasoning yet - since you are using homemade chicken broth as the liquid, cook first and then taste before seasoning). My intent is to cook the vegetables in chicken broth until they are 80% done, then finish them off in the oven. Potatoes cook quickly and for most of the 20 minute cook, the potatoes are not in the pot.

Eventually I add the chicken, which is fully cooked.

and a Tablespoon of butter. The broth is well seasoned in this case, so no seasonings were added to the vegetables. You might find after tasting that you need up to a teaspoon of salt, 1/8 - 1/2 teaspoon black pepper to taste, and maybe 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon of ground thyme. Sufficient amounts of all of those were already in my broth and so none were added to the dish.

Here are three of the four bowls I eventually used. For us, these are single servings. The spice bottle is there for size indication only.

When cooked, the vegetables are drained. The broth is saved to make the gravy.

I like to make a béchamel for my pot pies, so I add equal parts of flour to fat and cook at a low heat for about four minutes, being careful to not brown the flour. This is white sauce (roux), not a brown sauce (roux). For this one I used three tablespoons of flour and butter with no salt or pepper (remember we will add the fully seasoned broth).

Stir in the broth drained from vegetable cooking. If not dilute enough (too thick) add more broth, not water.

And cook until it reduces to a nice thick gravy. You could add a little white wine if you wanted, but I never do.

Vegetables portioned into bowls. You could put a bottom crust in if you like. If I did, I would butter coat the dish before placing the crust.

Then Béchamel over the vegetables and chicken.

Cover each dish with puffed pastry and press slightly to seal pastry to top of dish. wipe tops with soft butter (why not?), cut 4 one inch slits in top of pastry to vent steam and bake (On a pan to catch any bubble over) at 350 for about 30-40 minutes to heat everything through and through and cook the crust.

These need to sit about 10 - 20 minutes when removed from oven. They really are too hot to eat immediately and still pretty hot after 15 minutes.

Money shots:

A pretty good Sunday night use for chicken and broth.

All my stuff