Rosie Makes Chicken Pot Pies.

While rummaging through my freezer, I found this little chicken I'd bought on sale. I'm thinking individual chicken pot pies for the little Hawthornelets.

$2.80 for a whole chicken. Not bad.

For the pastry: 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 cup shortening 1/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced about 2/3 cup ice water 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash Freshly ground salt and pepper

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Drop in diced butter and coat with flour.

With a pastry blender, work in the butter and shortening.

When you're making a pastry dough, you want different sizes of butter flakes in the dough - from bread crumb to pea size. The smaller pieces make the dough tender. The larger pieces make the dough flaky.

Gradually add in water ...

... gathering the dough in a ball. Do not overwork the dough. Just gather and roll around until it's smooth. Cover in plastic and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Ingredients for the filling: 1 carrot, diced 1 celery, diced 1 small onion, diced red, green, yellow, and orange pepper, diced handful of water chestnuts, sliced 1 cup frozen peas about 3-4 cups cooked chicken

I added maybe 3 TB butter to my pan and sauteed all the veggies for about a minute.

Then I added in about 1/2 cup flour. Cook, stirring, for a minute.

Slowly add in 1 quart of chicken stock ...

... stirring and allowing the mixture to thicken.

Add in 1/2 cup heavy cream.

Stir in the chicken ...

... and the peas. Heat through.

It needed more peas. If your filling is not as thick as you would like, you could sprinkle in some Wondra quick-mixing flour to thicken it up. Don't sprinkle regular all-purpose flour. It will clump unless you make beurre manie (bur mahn-yay) which is equal parts flour and butter. Knead the flour and butter together and whisk into your liquid.

Parsley and thyme from the garden.

Chop the parsley and strip the leaves off the thyme.

Add herbs to the mix.

Taste test. Season if necessary with freshly ground salt and pepper.

I filled 5 1-cup ramekins and a 6 1/2-inch Corningware dish with the filling.

Dust a little flour on your board, cut the dough into pieces, and roll out.

Using an egg wash (1 egg mixed with 1 TB water), brush the outside of the ramekins so the pastry will seal.

Cover the pots with the pastry, brush with the egg wash, and put a few slits in the top to vent. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes - until the pastry is golden brown and the filling bubbly hot.

I really like this crusty dough.

Hot steamy goodness.

The thyme is a nice earthy touch.

These didn't last very long.

Put this on my comfort food list.