Tasty Tuesday • Chicken Pot Pie

I have a confession. I love Bisquick. I love Bisquick pancakes, Bisquick biscuits, Bisquick breaded chicken. I also love chicken pot pies. Banquet, Marie Callender's, frozen, fresh, homemade, it doesn't matter. I've made a few different versions before, and they always turn out ok, but never anything to write home about.

Inside my Bisquick cookbook is a chicken pot pie recipe that calls for canned chicken gravy. That recipe was nixed right away, but I thought I'd use their recipe for biscuit topping. Next I turned to my trusty America's Test Kitchen cookbook. I used their recipe for sauce, but changed the vegetables a bit. They include celery in theirs which the kids and I would love, but Rob wouldn't be crazy about. Since broccoli is the kids go to veggie, I thought I would add it in the mix. 

The result was great. Rob said it was the healthiest and best tasting pot pie he'd ever had. Brooke ate all her chicken and biscuit and Harrison ate all his veggies. Between them they ate a well balanced meal. As long as they're eating, that's all I care about. This will definitely be entering our meal rotation.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

12 oz package frozen diced carrots

1/2 large onion, minced

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup dry sherry

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon ground black pepper 

2 large chicken breasts, cut into one inch pieces

10 oz frozen broccoli

1 cup frozen peas

Biscuit topping:

1 cup Bisquick 

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 cups shredded cheese of choice

Directions

1. Cut up onions, chicken and garlic. Preheat oven to 400*.

2. Melt butter in a large skillet or dutch oven style pan over medium heat. Add onions and carrots. Season with salt. Cook until vegetables have softened, approximately 5 minutes.

3. Add in garlic and thyme. Cook until fragrant, 30-60 seconds. Stir in flour.

4. Whisk in sherry, chicken broth and cream. Cook until sauce starts to thicken, approximately 5 minutes.

5. Add in bay leaves, pepper and chicken. Let simmer for 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked. While the chicken is cooking mix together ingredients for the biscuit topping.

6. Remove bay leaves and add in broccoli and peas. Thoroughly combine and then pour into 13x9 pan.

7. Spoon biscuit mixture on top of the chicken and vegetables. Bake at 400* for 20 minutes, or until biscuit topping is cooked through.

8. Let stand for 5 minutes and serve while still hot.

Chicken and vegetables right before transferring to the 13x9.

Straight out of the oven.

Notes: Waiting until the very end to mix in the broccoli keeps the entire dish from tasting like broccoli. The broccoli florets I used were rather large, so I cut them into smaller pieces before adding them to the pan. The biscuit topping mixture is not smooth. The recipe said to pour topping over dish, but I spooned it onto the dish and spread it out as much as possible. As you can see from the picture above, it didn't cover the entire dish.