Weeknight Homemade Pot Pie

Part of my series. I'm cheap and I want to feed my family homemade food...and no I don't have a ton of time because I work like the rest of middle class folks. (LOL) I have a kitchen-aide. Honestly, without some sort of mixer...add about 10 minutes to this recipe. Either way, it is pretty easy, and pretty frickin tasty! Oh, and don't get uptight about the ingredients...the bulk of my recipes are suggestions. * The secret I've found to a tender and flaky pastry crust are the proportion of butter and flour. I practiced a whole winter to get my crust just right. The other suggestion I found was to add my salt to my water. It mixes in far better. Another thing is to keep your hands off and out of the crust as much as possible. The more you can do this, the more tender and flaky the crust will be. I like crust only on the top, a 2nd crust on the bottom is both more difficult and makes this dish too heavy. Lazy/easy I always say.

• Ready In: 45 mins
• Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 7  tablespoons shortening
• 4 1⁄4 tablespoons butter
• 2  cups flour
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 5  tablespoons cold water
• 3⁄4 tablespoon onion powder
• 3⁄4 tablespoon garlic powder
• 4  chicken breast halves
• 1  tablespoon canola oil
• 32  ounces  frozen mixed vegetables (green beans, corn, carrots)
• 3  cups  chicken stock
• 2  tablespoons flour

Directions

1. Start your chicken in the pan. I use a fryer pan, then it all gets done in one dish. Add the oil and chicken, add a bit of salt and pepper, or seasoned salt, or Goya Adobo. You choose.
2. Add 1 cup of the chicken stock after you flip the chicken over, put on the lid and steam/poach your chicken.
3. Make the crust:
4. In the mixing bowl, cut your fat (butter & shortening) up into pieces. The butter should be cold, the shortening room temperature -- you know, the way you pull it out of the fridge and cabinet.
5. Toss the flour, onion powder and garlic powder on top of the fat. Turn on the mixer and cut the flour into the fat. It will look like pieces of fat that don't stick together, but are all mixed with the flour.
6. Add your cold salt water, slowly until the dough forms a ball. You probably won't use it all. Stick it in the fridge for a couple minutes while you finish the chicken.
7. ~~~.
8. Take the chicken out of the pan when cooked through. Cut it up (I use kitchen shears and tongs, so I can cut it and not burn my fingers.
9. Add the other 2 cups of stock.
10. Add the frozen veggies.
11. Add the chicken back inches.
12. Make a slurry. If you don't know how to do this, take your 2 T of flour in the bottom of a measuring cup. Add a bit of cold water while mixing vigorously with a fork. Once the mixture looks like a creamy white soup without lumps, you have your slurry to thicken the sauce.
13. Add the slurry (or most of it) to the veggies, chicken and stock. Take off the heat and let sit.
14. Roll out your pie crust. This isn't science. Put a bit of flour on the board, roll it out. I use a Silpat (you can use a silicone pad also). Roll it onto that, so you can pick it up easily.
15. Put your chicken and veggie mixture in a 13 x 9 x 2 glass pan.
16. Put the crust on top and trim to fit the pan (I use a pizza cutter to go around the edges).
17. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees until the crust is light brown.