Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Look at the ingredients in a Swanson Chicken Pot pie, would you?  There's some five dollar words in this list and you better get a dictionary to pronounce 'em.  Pyrophosphate?  aluminosilicate?  Hope you had some book learnin'.

INGREDIENTS:Water, enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), cooked chicken (dark meat chicken, salt, soy protein isolate, carrageenan, modified food starch, sodium phosphate, spice extract), carrots, potatoes with sodium acid pyrophosphate, shortening (lard, hydrogenated lard, partially hydrogenated soybean oil), cooked mechanically separated chicken, modified food starch, chicken base (bleached enriched wheat flour [malted barley flour, potassium bromate, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin], salt, maltodextrin, whey powder, whey protein concentrate, garlic powder, soy lecithin, yeast extract, onion powder, spices, xanthan gum, turmeric extract, annatto), contains 2% or less of: peas, chicken fat, dextrose, natural and artificial chicken flavor (salt, chicken powder, chicken fat, autolyzed yeast extract, water, natural and artificial flavors, invert sugar, chicken broth, onion powder, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil, grill flavor [from partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil], tocopherols), salt, dough conditioner (sodium aluminosilicate, salt, vital wheat gluten, enzymes, soy protein flour, ammonium sulfate, fumaric acid), caramel color, annatto (for color).

So Tricia makes homemade chicken pot pies.  These pot pies are good - and good for you, too!  First she puts one of our chickens in a pot boiling on the stove and lets it simmer all day long.  While the chicken cooks, she gets out some buckwheat groats and grinds them into flour.

The Daily Grind

It doesn't take very long to grind 3 cups of buckwheat flour and this will be used to make the crust.


Cranking out flour

 To the 3 cups of buckwheat flour, add 1 tsp salt and set aside while we let the chicken cook.  We can make the filling while we wait.

Flour Power

We went through the garden and harvested some Chinese Long Beans, Zucchini and tomatoes.  From the freezer, we pull out some carrots, peas and corn that we had harvested and blanched from the garden this past fall.

Prepping vegetables for the Chicken pot pie

We'll need some of Daisy's butter to make the light roux that'll serve as the base for the chicken pot pie.  Look how brilliant yellow Daisy's butter is!

Daisy's Butter

Add 1/3 cup of Daisy's butter and 1/3 cup of the hand-ground buckwheat flour.  Make light roux until it bubbles.

Make a light roux

Pull out 2 cups of chicken broth from your simmering pot on the stove and add to your roux.


Adding broth to the roux

Now add all of your chopped up vegetables to the simmering skillet.


A veritable potpourri of vegetables

Add 2/3 cup fresh cream to the chicken pot pie filling.


Daisy's cream added to the skillet

Now while you let that mixture simmer and thicken, we can work on the dough for the crust.  Get your bowl of flour and to it add 2/3 cups melted butter and 1/2 cup of water.


The beginnings of the crust

Work this together and then split in two so you'll have enough for your bottom and top crust.  Get the rolling pin out and roll it out flat.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Buckwheat is a little harder to work with than regular wheat flour and it may break apart when you put it into the pie pan.  That's okay.  Simply put it back together.


The pie crust ready to receive the filling

Let's turn our attention back to the simmering pie filling.  We debone the chicken that we've had on the stove top and we add 2 cups of cooked, deboned chicken to the filling.


Lookin' good!

Now go ahead and pour the filling into the pie crust.


Add some Tabasco, salt and pepper for some extra flavor, if you'd like

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and put your chicken pot pie on a tray to catch any overflow during the cooking process.


Let's put the top on

Take the second rolled out crust and put on top of your pie, crimp the edges with a fork and cut some breathing holes in the crust with a knife.


The upper crust!

Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.  The kitchen is smelling good right about now.


Grab a plate, fork and a tall glass of milk

Let's thank God for our food and eat.


Here's the first serving

Here is a fork view.

Look out stomach here it comes!

This is a family pleasin' meal that the whole family enjoys.  Nice job, Tricia!