World's Best Chicken Pot Pie - "Old School" 52 Uses for a Rotisserie Chicken Casserole Recipe

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Just in time for Thanksgiving leftovers (I made this with Chicken from a store bought Rotisserie Chicken, but just imagine the dribs and drabs of your Holiday Turkey turned into this wonderful EASY casserole (and a great use of all those other holiday side dish leftovers)...

A chicken pot pie is one of those dishes I like to make whenever I buy too much produce.  Extra carrots, cheap cans of corn (love those pre-holiday sales), open bags of frozen peas in the freezer... Use em up, make a meal of leftovers.


This particular recipe comes from a new favorite cookbook, The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure.  The book is a joy to read with dozens of essays on the joy of cooking.  The book features plenty of recipes that back up the author's (Alana Chernila) plans to make a homemade kitchen a way of life.

A particular aspect of her writings is to use what you have on hand, turn pantry items into something special...

Like a Chicken Pot Pie.  This is a modification of the recipe she publishes in the book, along with a few additions of mine.

Most all of her recipes includes a paragraph about how to make the recipe your own.  Optional additional ingredients, swaps or simply encouragement to try something of your own cooking imagination.  Pot Pies are just made for imagining...

In particular, I made a few lasagnas this week for a catering client.  I had extra Parmesan cheese so I made more of an Alfredo inspired gravy for the base.  I love buttermilk biscuits so I used buttermilk with an extra brush on the top and the extra pepper on top of that brushed buttermilk is an homage to my father who loved dumping pepper into a glass of buttermilk and swigging away.  He was right, pepper and buttermilk go great together!

Using fresh made Buttermilk Biscuits to top the pot pie is genius!  The thick gravy mixed in with the vegetables make a unique Biscuits and Gravy taste and texture.  The biscuits come out with a crisp top coating and almost a soft chewy dumpling flavor on the bottom, making an additional mix of textures.  Plenty of seasonings (Mustard in the gravy is one I really liked) make this a pot pie to remember.  Better than just a leftover dish, this deserves front and center at any family gathering.  People will rave!



As to the book, I LOVED THIS BOOK!  A wonderful first cookbook for a beginning want to be cook, while thought provoking enough for any experienced kitchen jockey.  If you have the joy of cooking in your soul, this will reinforce that feeling.  If you want to become a better cook, this will inspire and aid your plans.  And if you just like a good read, spend a cold rainy Sunday afternoon with this book.

“This is so much more than a cookbook full of unforgettable recipes (though it is that, too). Alana Chernila has written an intimate portrait of a cook in her kitchen, one who celebrates the surprise windfalls and the mundane, everyday moments with equal fervor. Irrepressible, flavor-seeking, and always curious, she makes the best case ever for daily home cooking: happiness!”
—AMY THIELEN, author of The New Midwestern Table and host of Food Network’s Heartland Table 

Here's the legal stuff... "I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review." But the review and opinions are 100% accurate and mine!".  Love this book and highly recommend it!

 OK... Here's what I did...

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

• FOR THE FILLING - Meat stripped from one Store Bought Rotisserie Chicken
• 4 TBS Butter
• 1/2 Cup Whole Milk
• 2 Cup Chicken Stock
• 1 Cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
• 4 TBS Olive Oil
• 2 Medium Sweet Onions, Diced
• 4 Medium Carrots, Peeled and Diced
• 1 Cans Sweet Corn, drained
• 1 Cups Frozen peas, rinsed under hot water to thaw
• 1 Cup Mushrooms, sliced thin
• 2 Stalks Leeks, outer leaves peeled, then sliced thin.
• 2 Stalks Celery, Diced
• 4 TBS Whole Grain Mustard
• 2 TBS Thyme
• 2 TBS Sea Salt
• 4 TBS Pepper
• FOR THE BISCUIT BATTER - 4 Cups Flour
• 2 TBS Baking powder
• Large Pinch Sea Salt
• 2 Sticks (1 Cup) Butter, softened to room temperature
• 2 Cup plus 1/4 Cup Divided Buttermilk
• 2 Large Eggs
• 2 TBS Pepper

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. For the filling, in a large heavy bottomed sauce pan, melt the butter and add the flour. Under low to medium heat, stir continuously for 5 minutes until the roux darkens and has a nutty aroma. CAUTION, stir continuously, do not let the flour burn or you must start over.
3. Add Milk and Chicken stock and stir to Combine. heat to a low simmer and stir occasionally while you cook the vegetables.
4. To cook the vegetables, in a heavy bottomed frying pan, over medium high heat, Add the diced Onions, Celery, Carrots and Leeks. Saute for about 5 minutes until the onions are soft and translucent.
5. Add the Peas and Corn and saute for 1 minute.
6. Add the Mushrooms, Mustard and seasoning, stir to combine
7. Transfer the cream sauce to the vegetables and stir to mix. Add additional milk if needed for a gravy to your taste.
8. Transfer this to a large baking dish.
9. MEANWHILE, make the batter for the biscuits... In a large bowl, combine the Flour and Baking Powder, whisk to mix. Work the soft butter into the dry mix, using your fingers continue to rub together until well integrated.
10. In a small bowl, whisk together the 2 cups Buttermilk and Eggs.
11. Fold together the wet and dry ingredients, Do not over mix, that makes dense biscuits.
12. Spoon hockey puck size bits of the batter evenly over the sauced vegetables.
13. Bake for 20 minutes until the biscuits are baked through and are golden brown and delicious looking.
14. Once cooked, brush on additional buttermilk and sprinkle with additional pepper to taste.
15. Serve HOT and Enjoy!

Cannot recommend this book more!

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This recipe has been added to my growing list of "52 Uses For a Rotisserie Chicken"  (Now over 100!)...I am so confused... $5.49 for a fully cooked, fully seasoned Oven Roasted, Rotisserie Chicken. Yet shop in the raw meat department and most raw chickens are at best $8 each and usually far closer to $10. Anyone have an answer??? Me either. So, I can either rail against the machine, or learn to embrace the beauty that is the $5 chicken! In this pin are recipes I have made, and recommend. MORE than 52 (I just can't stop)..
You get the idea.  From Scratch Pizza to Chinese Take Out recipes, Lots of Soups and Chili... Appetizers to Main Courses (Still can't find a dessert, but I am looking).  More than enough ideas for that store bought bird to shine with just a little extra work

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