Comfort Food at The Simple Farm

Mom was all about comfort food for her family of six and indeed one of Mom's comfort food growing up was her Chicken Potpie. When I found Chef Amy Barnes of the Sweet Basil Gourmetware's recipe, I just knew I'd have to make it for my family.

Indeed -  it's lovely comfort food.

Comfort Ingredients:
4 Tbl. butter
1 onion diced
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon or paste [NOTE: I swear by Better than Bouillon paste -probably found at a Whole Foods]
1 cup water
3/4 cup half and half
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary [NOTE: I use fresh from my garden. It's so easy to grow, at least here in the desert.]
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 Tbl.sherry [NOTE: I used cooking sherry.]
2 carrots diced [NOTE: I used 3.]
3 stalks celery, diced
3 cups or about 1/2 pounds cooked diced chicken [NOTE: I used 3 large chicken breasts that I cooked verryyyyyyyyyy slowly in a frying pan with a touch of garlic salt.]

Piecrust
1 cup flour
1 Tbl. rosemary, finely minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Crisco [NOTE: Yes, I admit,I used Crisco and it's the first time in at least seven years.]
3 Tbl. ice-cold water


Start your crust prep by chopping your rosemary - really fine.

Then . . .
In a big bowl (for some reason I LOVE glass bowls) add your flour, salt and finely chopped rosemary.

Then add your Crisco . . .

And cut in the Crisco with a pastry blender (a fork will do fine) or with two knives (even better than a fork) until this mixture is fairly course,but uniform.

Sprinkle the cold water with a table spoon, a little at a time and work this into the dough making a nice firm ball. Put this aside and start on the comfort part.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and then melt your butter in a large skillet over medium heat.

Dice your onions, dice your celery and dice your carrots. Melt your butter and then add your diced onion and cook this until soft. Whisk in the flour; cook, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes.

Next, add the chicken bouillon or paste (again, I LOVE the above mentioned paste), add your water, the half and half, your rosemary and the salt and pepper. Mix this up and then . . .

Stir in the sherry (I added an extra tablespoon -because I wanted to). Add your carrots, celery and the chicken that's been cooked and diced.

You'll note that my carrots weren't diced - just sliced. Diced is better. Simmer, covered until the vegetables are tender - about 8 minutes. I cooked it a bit longer, added about 1/2 cup of the broth from cooking the chicken breasts. I think doing this made everything moist and added a bit more flavor.

Now, return to your crust - On a lightly floured board roll the dough to a circle - about 1/8 inch thick. The recipe calls for a 1 quart size backing dish (round would be fun), but all I had available was a 1.5 square quart sized baking dish - so, that's what I used and it was just fine.

Fill your baking dish with your comfort ingredients and blanket the dish with your rolled out dough - sealing and crimping the edges.

Bake, uncovered for about 30 - 45 minutes until the gold brown. Makes 4 to 6 servings.