Pot Pies Two Ways

Hi Friends!

Tonight we had pot pies. A couple Christmases ago, I requested some ramekins so that I could make individual pot pies and we put them to good use tonight. I LOVE chicken pot pies...I used to love getting them at Boston Market when I was younger...but let's just take a look at the nutrition facts for one of those:

810 Calories
430 Calories from Fat
48 grams of fat
24 grams saturated fat
1280 mg sodium

oh it hurts me so just thinking about it....

so over the years i've tried making my own pot pies. Some have turned out well...some haven't...but tonight I made a pretty darn good one! Brett wasn't in the mood for chicken pot pie, so he made his own Mexican pot pies. I will share both recipes with you :)

Mine was inspired by this recipe but since I was really only making enough for me, I didn't really follow the quantities and I kinda did my own thing, as usual.

To start with, I sauteed my vegetables. I used half a white potato, some leftover sweet potato I had in the fridge, a little bit of onion, about 8 baby carrots, one stalk of celery, a little garlic and a whole lot of pepper. As a splurge, I even added about 2 tsp butter to saute them in, instead of olive oil (gotta live a little right?!)

Once the potatoes started to get tender, I added 1 1/2 Tbsp of flour:

 Then I added about 1 cup of chicken broth and stirred until the sauce was thickened. I also added about 1/4 cup skim milk:

When the sauce was thickened, I added the chicken. While we were out running errands today, we picked up a rotisserie chicken from Costco - did you know they're only $5!! We don't buy them often, but we skipped lunch today and I knew we'd be hungry when we got home and wouldn't want to cook the chicken. Plus, I'm using the bones to make some chicken broth for my tortellini soup! I also added some frozen peas:

 

Then I ladled everything into my ramekins...one big and one baby:

I covered them with foil and they were ready for the oven. 

 

I had every intention of making my own crust, but when it came down to it, I wasn't in the mood, so I grabbed some flaky biscuits while we were at the grocery store and called it a day:

 

 Now, on to the hubby's pies...

If you've met the hubby, you know he is a Mexican food fanatic. So while we were at the grocery store, he got some refried beans and enchilada sauce and we headed home. 

He filled his ramekins (note he has 3 to my 1.25) with tortilla shells. He says to tear them at the folds so they sit flat in the ramekin.

Then he started with a layer of refried beans...topped with some chicken, and some cream of chicken soup:

 

Next up, enchilada sauce and more refried beans:

 

And finally- the cheese:

 

He stuck some toothpicks in to keep the foil off the cheese and into the oven they all went.

We cooked the pies and the biscuits simultaneously so our oven was at 350 degrees and the pot pies were nice and hot after about 1/2 an hour. We uncovered them for the last few minutes to help melt his cheese:

Then I topped mine with the biggest biscuit:

And we dug in:

We didn't really like them:

Take that Boston Market!

Enjoy!

--Lindsay--