Two posts in one day!!

This one is really only important if you're a "cooking for one" person cause if you are I made a major breakthrough today and am pretty chuffed about it.

I was cleaning out the fridge a little and there was my left-over chicken and I thought "well, I guess I could have creamed chicken on a biscuit" but what really sounded good was a chicken pot pie, I suppose because of such a cold, snowy day (see my report on that below.  Hadn't made one of those since I had a family to cook for.  So...after some math calculations, I came up with a recipe that I thought seemed about right for the crust and once I had that written out, I started on the filling.  Used some of my left-over broth (by Kitchen Basics - not me), some milk, some water, etc., and made the gravy part, then chopped up a little bit of carrot, let that cook for a bit, then added some frozen peas, and finally tossed in the chicken.  Set it aside and then made the pie dough which I put in the fridge to rest for a while.  Rolled it out and it seemed to be the perfect amount for my little red casserole so I heated up the chicken mix, added a little more milk, scooped it out into the casserole, put the crust on top and into the oven it went.

Had no idea how it would turn out and I had to keep adding more minutes to the cooking time since I had no idea how long it should cook, but eventually I took it out of the oven:

and I'm sorry, but I have to tell you this was so truly absolutely delicious that I ate all of it.  I should have made one in one of my little 4" tart pans but that seemed like it would have so little "pot" in the pie that I opted for my small casserole.  But the very most important part of this is that I came up with what is apparently a perfect ratio of ingredients for the crust because that crust was flaky, tender, tasty, perfection.  There, I've said it.  I'm going to post the recipe for it in my recipe collection (HERE) so if you cook for one and would like to make yourself a little homemade pie some day, now you can make the crust from scratch.

Bon appetit!

Perfect Pie Crust for One

I based this pie crust recipe on one I've used for probably 40 years or so ever since I finally decided to start making my crusts from scratch.  I'll show you a few of the pages from that booklet - I can't remember for sure but I feel like it was a Gold Medal flour booklet or maybe Pillsbury or Betty Crocker.  Anyway, it has been my go-to-pie book since I discovered it at my mom's house one time and asked her if I could have it.  I only seem to have pages 14 through 33 now but fortunately, I also typed up the actual crust recipe and keep it in with my notebook of favorite recipes.

Pretty awful isn't it?  But it certainly shows how much it's been used!

Anyway, based on the recipe for a one crust pie, this is what I made when I wanted to make a chicken pot pie after Thanksgiving.  (see recipe for that HERE)









One Crust Pie for One

6 Tbs flour
2 Tbs lard *
2 tsp cold water
about 1/4 tsp salt

Cut the lard into the flour and salt - I've always used two knives although at Thanksgiving, I used my new mini food chopper which worked beautifully.  For this small amount though I used the knives and when that didn't seem to go fast enough for me, I decided to heck with it and used a dinner fork, kind of chopping at the lumps and slightly mashing them against the side of the bowl.  Sprinkle the water in and mix with a fork until it begins to hold together.  Keep working at it until you can shape it into a patty and then wrap it in Saran and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour or so.  Roll it out on a floured surface (and I use a "stocking" on my rolling pin) and there you are.  One wonderful, flaky piecrust to use in your favorite recipe.  If you're making a two-crust pie, you would double these amounts, make two patties and roll them out.  This will be plenty for one of those 4" pie tins.

I made this the first time because I was desperate for a home-made chicken pot pie.  The recipe for that is HERE.