Chicken Pot Pie in the summer?

Why would anybody be blogging about chicken pot pie in the middle of July? Doesn't everybody just BBQ all the time?  I think it's a good idea myself.  So I say "yes chicken pot pie in July".  And here are some of the reasons why you might want to make one or two even in the summer.

1) It is raining, and you don't want to BBQ in the rain.
2) You are sick of BBQ-ing, and want something different.
3) You had a big BBQ on the weekend, and you have leftover meat you don't know what to do with.
4) BBQ-ing means nothing to you and you just feel like some comfort food.

Those are some reasons anyway.  Another one, is that when I made my lemon meringue pie yesterday, I doubled the crust recipe and so had extra pie crust lying around.

So here's a recipe for leftover-ish chicken pot pie.  It can be changed to beef, or actually using non-leftover ingredients.

LEFTOVER-ISH CHICKEN POT PIE

(enough for two small pot pies)

1 single pie crust

1 cooked chicken breast cut into cubes (can use left over or cook from fresh, any BBQ sauce used to cook the original chicken just adds flavour)

2 small white potatoes, cook and cut into cubes (maybe if you are making potato salad for a BBQ, just cook extra and keep in the freezer until ready to use)

1/4 cup frozen corn

1/4 cup frozen peas

1/4 cup carrots (cooked) and cut into small pieces

1/4 onion finely chopped (I usually quick fry the onion before adding to rest of ingredients)

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 cup chicken stock 

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 tsp curry powder (optional)

1/4 tsp garlic powder or 1/2 tsp fresh minced garlic

2 tbsp flour

In a small saucepan, put chicken stock, olive oil and flour.  Cook over medium-high heat until boiling and starting to thicken.  This is your gravy.  If too thick add water, if too thin, quickly mix some water and more flour together and whisk and blend in.  Do not just put extra flour in without the water or you will get lumps. 

In a large bowl toss chicken, vegetables, spices, and gravy until well-coated with gravy and well mixed.

Roll out the dough and line two large pot pie bowls with the dough.  It's a bit tricky, so if your dough seems a bit dry, add a tbsp butter before you roll or try to put in bowls.  Divide the ingredients into each of the two bowls. If you have too much filling, it can easily be placed in a freezer bag and frozen to use at another time.

 Roll out the remaining dough to cover the tops of the pies. If you are a little creative, decorate the tops for fun.  The one pictured here was very simple.

Some people choose to brush the tops with an egg wash (egg and water) at this point, but I don't.  There is egg in my crust already, so it browns up nicely.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Make sure you put bowls on a cookie sheet as sometimes when the filling starts to heat up and boil it will spill in your oven.