Chicken pot pie

My dad loved chicken pot pie. My mom was so glad when Swanson's came out with a TV dinner of sorts and happy that my father really enjoyed those little pie treats. So, once in a while, she would get chicken pot pies in those little aluminum pie pans, dad would get two of them, the rest of us would get one. I loved them, too. All I needed was a pie and a large salad, and I was set.

Well, my mother also made her own pot pie (chicken) and I wish I had the casserole pan she used to make the pie in. It was just the right size. She'd make her best pie crust -- I'd use Pillsbury Refrigerated pie crust to top the pie.

Her recipe for chicken pot pie was:

On the rare occasion we had left over chicken, she would use that. Most of the time, though, she'd get a small chicken from Leap's grocery store (later the A&P when they came to town), cut it up and boil it until the meat fell off the bones. Then she'd take the meat pieces, small and large chunks, and enough of the stock from where she boiled the chicken and start working on her pie.

She thickened the stock she set aside so it was a nice filler for the pie. To the chicken she would add cut up carrots, peas, small pieces of potato, and sometimes a little bit of corn. Then she'd put those items in the casserole dish she used. She top that mix with the gravy she'd made from the stock, just to cover, and then topped the dish with the pie crust. She'd bake that at 350 until the top crust was nicely browned -- about 30-45 minutes.

I have to tell you, it really was good, but then there were few things that my mother made that didn't taste good. I think she was a good cook and she rarely made something I didn't enjoy eating -- like liver or turnips.

NOTE: When she used left over chicken, she would use canned stock for the gravy.

ttfn