Chicken "Pot" Pie

When I moved just over a year ago, I went from a one-story apartment with a small kitchen to a two-story home with a beautiful, spacious kitchen (and, just as exciting, a backyard and a driveway!). In my apartment, my roommate and I stored kitchen supplies everywhere. We filled up all the cabinets in our little kitchen pretty quickly, then moved on to some shelves in the living area.

After that proved to still be an insufficient amount of space, we repurposed the linen closet to a pantry/kitchen storage closet. And the things that we used less frequently (i.e. cake forms, serving platters, etc.) we kept in our storage unit in the basement of the building.


So once I moved and saw the plethora of cabinets in my much large kitchen, I expected everything to fit with room to spare. I know, as I write this I know it sounds ridiculous, who was I kidding? It's like my kitchen supplies multiplied in the move and I soon realized that everything again wouldn't fit and we now have shelves in the basement holding excess kitchen supplies.

However, don't take any of this as a complaint. I loved my apartment and my lack of space, it made me appreciate space much more and prevented me from having anything but the essentials (mostly). And I adore my house, I have to much room to move (and dance) it my kitchen. And while I still can't fit everything, I can still fit much more than before (plus I know I could fill an entire house with kitchen supplies).


The point of all this is I just don't have the space (or the money) to buy every kitchen gadget out there. I would if I could, but I can't. So I have to do things the "old fashioned way" or be inventive with the gadgets I have. For example, I make dough with a dough hook attachment on my mixer and then kneaded it by hand because I don't (yet) have a bread machine.

And I only have 1 size ramekin, because who has the space for more? While these ramekins are perfect for molten chocolate cakes, they're not large enough to make individual chicken pot pies. What's a girl to do? Instead of cooking the filling, pouring it into a ramekin (or pie crust) then adding the top crust, I decided to "deconstruct" the chicken pot pie and do it a little differently. I cooked the chicken filling in a crock pot then served the meal with a buttermilk biscuit (adapted from this recipe). Not only is this healthier, it also is easier because it's mostly hands-offs!

Chicken "Pot" Pie

Yield: 4 servings | Prep time: 10 minutes | Total time: 8 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard

• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

• 8 oz. mushrooms, quartered

• 1 cup carrots, 1/2-inch slices

• 1 cup celery, 1/2-inch slices

• 1 medium onion, diced

• 1/2 cup water

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/3 cup flour

• 1/2 tsp. thyme

• 16 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes

• 1 cup frozen peas

• 1/3 cup skim milk

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 4 buttermilk biscuits (recipe below)