Tate's Kitchen: chicken pot pie

Confession time - I usually have these made for the family by my good friend Marie (yes...THAT Marie - whose last name begins with a 'C' - and who also makes 'Pies')
But I was scanning through Sacramento Connect and came across this site called 'a girl and her fork' (how great is that name? a girl and her fork)
And one of her recent recipe postings was Chicken Pot Pie. While I have often thought about making these from scratch, it just didn't seem necessary to fix something that wasn't broken. The family has been perfectly happy having pies from my friend Marie so why bother?
Of course I had to bother! (you're surprised?) ...here we go ...
I've decided to make my own chicken pot pie.

I did have to make a few changes to her recipe. Either I didn't have what was called for. Or I just didn't put it in my pie. Or I just didn't feel like making pastry dough from scratch ( i know i know...the box from the grocery...shameful)
So I am posting this the way I made it last night.

D E L I C I O U S !
One of my guests today said "eating that was like crawling into the lap of my mother"
Quite a compliment I would say.

I hope you can try it soon.

YOU WILL NEED:

1 box Puff Pastry
4 whole chicken breasts
little olive oil
salt pepper
4 cups chicken stock (i DID have this homemade)
1 cup white wine
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 1/2 sticks butter
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups chopped sweet onion
2 cloves garlic - minced
2 cups chopped carrots
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
2 cups mushrooms (i had button mushrooms - and after chopping it came to 2 cups so that's what i'm posting here)

TO DO:

oven to 350

lay those chicken breasts on a baking sheet
rub both sides with olive oil
add salt and pepper to both sides
bake about 35 minutes
let get cool enough to handle
chop into big chunks
set aside

in a saucepan put your chicken broth,the white wine and the bouillon cubes
bring to a simmer
stir to make sure the cubes are dissolved
keep warm

in a dutch oven add the butter (yes..all of it)
let melt then add the chopped onion
cook till translucent then add the garlic
cook another couple minutes
add flour - stir constantly
cook 2 or 3 minutes then add the chicken broth mixture
cook about 5 minutes then add some salt and pepper and the heavy cream

stir well

add chicken
cook couple minutes to make sure all the pieces are coated
add all the other vegetables
cook another 5 minutes or so
taste for seasoning
resist the urge to continue tasting

it really could be served at this point with some great rustic bread - but we're making pies remember?

note : Last night I used large mugs. But I felt the ratio of chicken mixture to pastry top was a bit off - too much of one in comparison to the other. I wanted to make sure there was pastry topping all the way to the last bite of chicken goodness. So today I decided to use a bunch of my little ramekins to see if everybody finished the race to the bottom together. Success.

NOW:

lightly flour a work surface and roll out your pastry dough - just enough to get 4 or 5 lids - you don't want to roll this out too thin
using a cookie cutter or a knife and a bowl bigger than your ramekin (that's what I used)
cut out your 'lids'

back to the mixture

place all your ramekins (or mugs) onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper
spoon filling to the tops of each ramekin
(i only needed to make six - so there is quite a bit of mixture left over right now)