Chicken Pot Pie

Welcome to Sunday night dinner!  We love this part of the week - everything is done and we are relaxing.  This weekend we've even made all the meals for the upcoming week already, because looking ahead we're not sure we'd have time during the week.  Tonight we're having a couple of belly-warming comfort foods.  We're starting with homemade chicken pot pie, which is so easy, especially if you have some leftover cooked chicken. 

First, chop up one onion, a few carrots, and a handful of potatoes - ours all came from the Farmer's market yesterday morning.  Toss them in a pot with 3 cups chicken broth and let it simmer until they're soft.  Add 1/2 cup each frozen peas and frozen corn, as well as 2 cups diced cooked chicken, a big pinch of sage, a bigger pinch of thyme, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. pepper.  Let that simmer while you whisk together 1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of flour in a bowl.  Mix it in to the veggies, and let it simmer until thickened.  Then take it off the heat.  Now, I find it a personal point of pride to use as few dishes as possible, and so I want to say that to this point in the process, I had used one cutting board, one knife, one bowl, one spoon, one measuring cup, and one stock pot.  Plus, I have a husband who likes to feel helpful, so I called on him and he washed them all up!  A Helpful Husband is a beneficial but not required ingredient.

Have you ever used phyllo dough before?  It's pretty good, but a little finicky.  You buy it frozen, so you have to put it in the fridge a day ahead of time to let it thaw (I forgot, so I had to set it close-but-not-too-close to the hot burner to speed the process).  Anyway, when you work with phyllo, you can't let it dry out, so it's best to keep it covered with plastic wrap while you work.  You'll also need some melted butter or a bowl of oil to brush on the pieces as you go.  In a pack of phyllo you'll probably have about 20 pieces of thin dough.  Take one, put it in a greased 9 inch pie pan, then brush some melted butter or oil over it.  Do that 9 more times until you have 10 pieces of dough layered with the butter or oil.  Now do something I didn't: put the pie pan on an edged cookie sheet in case of spills.  Of course, I spilled because I had too much filling and it overflowed.  Enter the Helpful Husband once again.  We got it cleaned up and then put the pie pan on the cookie sheet.  Preheat the oven to 350, then do the phyllo dough/butter or oil layering on top of the filling until you've used up the phyllo.  Brush a little more butter on top, and put it in the oven for about half an hour, until it's nice and brown.  Let it sit a few minutes before scooping out a hearty helping.

Now for dessert, we're going to have some Goat Cheese & Apple Tart, and I'll probably put that recipe up someday soon because it is oh-so-good.  But tonight, we're relaxing.  Tomorrow David will return to studying about infectious diseases, pharmacology, and pathology and I will go back to counseling a distraught family member about her uncle's swallowing decline, guiding a man with Aphasia into finding the right words to express himself, and determining whether or not a little old lady can drink regular liquids again.  But tonight we'll drink some wine, eat some yummy food, watch an episode of "The West Wing," and read our books.  Praise the Lord for the Sabbath!