My Famous "Stolen" Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pie

I grew up loving chicken pot pie. However, the chicken pot pie I am talking about came out of a box or out of a box at a restaurant. It’s a favorite comfort food for me and I have always wanted to learn how to make it.

Then comes the joy and complete bliss that is {Pintrest}. I did some searching and found this post. Unfortunately the link is no longer any good so, I will share this recipe with you admitting completely that it’s not my own creation but it is now one of my favorites.

I really enjoy making this pot pie for other people. It’s such a blessing to be able to provide a family with dinner and this pie makes for a perfect traveling dinner. As you will soon enough find out, it is ridiculously easy to make and this recipe makes two pies.

I almost always deliver one of the two pies to someone, but once in a while I will just freeze the filling and wait to make it another time. I am not a huge fan of that as I find the filling is too watery after having been frozen.

So, I could go on and on about the joys of chicken pot pie, but let’s just get right to it. Below I will condense the recipe for you in a printable format.

Gather up your stuff! Super Easy! 

You need two boxes of refrigerated pre-done pie dough, two cans of cream of chicken soup, 3-4 baby potatoes, 2-3 frozen chicken breasts, frozen mixed vegetables, shredded sharp cheddar, 1 egg, and two pie tins! 

Oh, please don’t forget your crock pot!!!!! Yes folks this is crock pot recipe that is my go to!

Peel and chop your potatoes into bite size pieces. I cut mine in about 1.5” sized pieces or so.

Measure out 1 cup of your frozen vegetables

Add your cream of chicken soup into the 

bowl with your potatoes and frozen mixed vegetables and mix together.

Add your seasonings.

I love adding a bit of 

seasoned salt and fresh cracked pepper. 

Gently mix it all together.

Add your frozen chicken to the crock pot. 

Now, I have tried this with all of kinds of different sizes of chicken breast, and by far it works the best with two giant chicken breasts or three medium chicken breasts. In this case we had three medium.

Pour your mixture over the chicken and set your crock pot on low and let it do its magic for 6-8 hours. (Or on High for 4-6 hours)

Now, what to do for 6-8 hours? Well, what I normally do is go to work. That is one thing I love about crock pot meals is the smell of someone cooking when I walk in the door. All the credit I get for making dinner with such very little effort.

Ok, now look at this…. This is what awaits me when I get home! It smells so good, so comforting.

Pre-set your oven to 350 degrees.

Go ahead and pull the chicken breasts from the mixture. The chicken will be fall apart perfect… you may have to fish out all the pieces from the crock pot.

Take two forks and shred your chicken.

Go ahead and shovel that mess of yummy goodness back 
into the crock pot….

Be sure to shut it off.

Now it’s time to prep those pans

I got these pans from my in laws. They are Marie Callendar pie pans that you get some kind of discount or refund if you return them. I'm sure glad they didn't because these are awesome little pie tins.

Generally with the regular dough I get, I have to work with it cold and fast. This dough I was working this day was breaking all over the place… I had to warm it up to make it work. Not my favorite but it did its job.

Once the pie dough is in go ahead and scoop out your pot pie filling. I scoop equally into each pie.

Look at that! So pretty!

Now you can buy shredded sharp cheddar but I prefer to shred my own.

Shred about 1.5-2 cups and share between the two pies.

Now cover your pies with the other two sheets of pie dough.

Pinch, seal, and remove the excess dough

I cut small slices into the top of the pies to allow venting…

Mix up your egg and one tbs of water...

Brush onto your pies and get them into the oven.

Bake in middle rack for 45 minutes

And then….

Voila!

Chicken Pot pies!

There is nothing better on a cold winter night and quite honestly nothing better to share.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!

Click here for Printable Recipe Link!

.... the Desires of your Heart

I was working on a blog post for this week about being content in your life while still following your dreams. That is a concept I am still trying to wrap my head around. 

What I have been thinking about and struggling with lately is the overwhelming desire in my heart to gain ownership of our own little piece of land and start a farm.

When I say overwhelming I mean (aside from really staying committed to my prayer life and Bible reading, taking care of my husband and son, and trying to remain transparent in my ministry) the only other thought on my mind at any given point of the day is…. the farm. I would even go as far to say that I am mildly, if not minimally, aggressively consumed with it.

Now to be honest, there have been seasons throughout my life where I have been obsessed with the idea of winning the lotto.

Even more so, my amazingly youthful imagination will take that a step further, or really like a bazillion steps further, to dreaming about what I would do if I were a multi-billionaire.

I always have known during those bouts of unrealistic dream marathons that these wants and desires were not given to me by God. They were a complete work of my flesh wanting what inevitably during those times I did not have and that was, quite simply, security.

Those dreams and notebook filling plans always came about when we were at our lowest points in life. When money was not coming in and bills were not being paid, and food was scarce… that’s when my pen came out and I started filling dozens of note books with all the ways we would be the most excellent stewards of a win like that. 

The funny thing is, all during those times while I was wishing and hoping for a magic genie to arrive, God was busy moving mountains in our lives.

  We could look back on a three month period when we had no jobs and the supplemental income wasn't coming close to cutting it, we could see that somehow rent was paid on time every month. How it got there was never the same way twice. Each time was very much unexpected. All the times and all the ways were God providing for us.

Now here I am, a closer relationship with God, a belief and understanding of His true provision and love, and I am still dreaming about something I don’t have. I have come to a place where I am starting to question whether or not this desire, not new but now outstandingly loud, is another product of my flesh or a glimpse into a promise from God.

Many Christians will say; “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalms 37:4

OK, I am good with that, but what does that mean, exactly? David was writing about seeing hope and restoration in times of trouble.  Delighting ourselves in the Lord means that we should seek our happiness in God; in who He is, His perfect love, and His ever-present friendship. Only then will He give us the desires of our heart.

To seek my happiness in God is not something I actively do. Seek peace, seek provision, seek leading, and seek discernment? Yes. But seeking happiness is not something I think I have ever done. Does that make me a terrible Christian? Well, I don’t know what you think, but I think it means I am most certainly not done learning and growing and as long as I am learning and growing I’m not rotting.

So, I will discover more about how to find happiness in the Lord. In the mean time I still have this farm dream to figure out.  Is this dream a dream from God or a product of my flesh?

I have had dreams about being rich, going back in time and rectifying some choices, changing my body inside and out, owning my own business, and having lots and lots of children.

Today, I no longer desire worldly wealth.

I mean come on, who wouldn't breathe just a little easier if no one had to worry about the bills? My new dream in regards to money is to take control of it instead of it controlling me. That’s a lesson I am learning every day.  Truly if by some chance I wound up with millions of dollars, I can promise you I would give most of it away.

I no longer wish to change my past.

That’s an immature dream as I've learned that regret is not of God. I only wish to learn from my past and present mistakes daily and be better for it.

As far as my dream for re-designing my body inside and out, I truly only desire to be healthy and have no desire to be skinny or perfect skinned or to have perfect hair.

My husband thinks I am beautiful and my son told me this week that I am the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. That’s enough for me.

The dream of becoming my own boss has never gone away. I have bookshelves full of instructional material on how to become an entrepreneur or how to run a successful restaurant. My dream really is about being completely in control of my own time.

That it doesn't belong to anyone else. Just another example is this a me thing or a God thing?

I still feel an aching from time to time to grow this little family, but I am settled in my faith knowing that Tristan was in Gods time and anyone else who comes along will be as well.

Today I don’t want any more children but in three weeks I could be looking into foster care. It comes in waves for me possibly just to keep me in the loop that perhaps God is not done with me in that area quite yet. Who knows?

Now, for the farm dream.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the origin of this dream comes from the same place as the “Millionaire dream”.

After having such epic peaks and valleys in our lives, a desire to grow our own food so we no longer have to rely on grocery stores or bank accounts sounds very appealing. But I am quite certain that is more than that. Yes self reliance is attractive, but as we already have experienced, there is no such thing as “self” reliance for us. I mean we could pretend that we are responsible for all things in our lives, and though our choices can sometimes dictate our situations we are never entirely alone in our directing our steps in this life.

Do I think the farm dream is a desire put in my heart by God? I don’t know. What I am 100% sure of is as I embark on this journey to seek Him, His Love, His grace, His friendship and find joy and happiness in Him, that He will give me the desires of my heart. Also, I believe I will know the true desires of my heart and I bet my pastor’s wife tonight one hundred dollars that the desires of my heart at the beginning of this journey could very well not be the desires of my heart at the end.

I am excited about this new revelation and I hope I have encouraged you to evaluate your dreams. Don’t throw them away but seek a new joy in knowing Him and have your dreams secured and promised.