Celebrate Green Blog

It’s been cold and rainy for days here in New Jersey, and while there was no rain today, it was still gloomy and chilly. It’s comfort food time. I thought I’d share with you this week an easy way to get comforting chicken pot pie on the table without having to make pie crust (or buy expensive store bought crust). My family enjoys pot pie filling on top of biscuits. Now, you can make your own biscuits or you can use store bought biscuits. I gave Pillsbury’s new simply … Buttermilk Biscuits a try for our dinner tonight. They certainly aren’t organic, but they are made with “zero grams trans fat, no high fructose corn syrup, and no artificial colors or flavors” - better than the traditional refrigerated biscuit dough. In a perfect world, I’d make my own biscuits from scratch.

In fact, this is one of those dishes where you can do it all from scratch right down to the chicken broth you use or you can use a few short cuts. It’s up to you. It’s one recipe my family can always count on me making after I’ve done a roasted chicken if there are leftovers.

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp butter
• 1/3 c flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp marjoram
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1 c milk (I use 1% organic milk)
• 10 1/2 oz chicken broth (I use Pacific Foods organic free range chicken broth)
• 3 c shredded or cubed cooked chicken
• 2 c mixed vegetables - cooked about 3/4 of the way through - they can be mixed frozen vegetables or fresh vegetables - it’s up to you

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan
2. Stir in flour, marjoram, salt & pepper. Cook until smooth and bubbly, stirring occassionly.
3. Stir in milk and broth gradually. Allow to boil, then turn down heat and cook until thickened.
4. Add chicken and vegetables and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes.
5. Serve over top of split biscuits.

This is also a great recipe to use after Thanksgiving to use up extra turkey. You can use chicken or turkey broth and do everything else exactly the same. Usually the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, we have some friends over to watch a movie, and I make a huge batch of turkey pot pie filling, put it in a slow cooker to keep it warm, and place a large basket of biscuits next to it. Everyone loves it.