My assembly line.
just showing my new cookie cutter shapes that i got. :)
My sweet little helper.
I've made chicken pot pies a few times and I think that this is the best batch yet!

Here is what you need:

and two to three recipe pie crust (one crust makes two individual pies) and the filling filled 6 pies with little filling left over.

3- ish cups of water
2-3 chicken bullion cubes
1-1.5 cups of chicken (2 chicken breasts- cooked)
1 onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
3-4 stick of celery
4-5 carrots (if you forgot to just buy frozen peas AND carrots)
4 mushrooms not just sliced- cut them in to tiny pieces
frozen peas
1 can-cream of chicken soup

for the roux
8 tablespoons of butter
6 tablespoons of flour
1 cup of milk

(to taste)
sage
garlic powder
thyme
pepper

Make sure that you make the pie dough well in advance of starting so it has time to chill. And now to the filling. Saute onions, garlic, celery. And then in a separate sauce pan combine 3 cups of water and a few bullion cubes and set at medium heat. Add sauteed items to broth as you go. Cut carrots to bite sized pieces and add to broth. Add peas and bite sized COOKED pieces of chicken to your broth. Start to saute the mushrooms and on the side make a roux. (One stick of butter melted, whisk flour into butter one table spoon at a time. then slowly add milk- it will thicken so much that it will almost be paste... and then it will thin out. When it is thinned then season it. This was my first time doing this and it made all of the difference in the world. Garlic powder, thyme, sage, salt, pepper. Add this to the broth. And last but not least add a can of cream of chicken soup. Season the broth too... and that is it.

Roll out your pie crusts (i do mini pot pies because they cook faster) in an assembly line sort of way. I promise it will save you time. Make sure to not pull out all of the pie dough. Only what you are working with. It would be a shame to have all of that beautiful dough go to waste because it was too warm to roll. ANYWAY- roll all of the crusts, fill the pies, and then do the tops. Make sure to cut slits in the top so steam can escape. I also like to paint the pie crust with milk and then sprinkle with coarse salt. (just a pinch because you don't want to ruin your pie!)

Bake small pies at 400 for one hour. Remember to put a pan covered in tin foil under your pies for when they drip. If you have chosen to do a large pie bake at 350 for 2 hours. Also make sure that you cover the pies with tin foil so that they don't brown too quickly. but make sure that you put cooking spray on the tin foil because it will stick to the pie. About a 20 minutes before the pie is done uncover so it will brown.

And that is it! Enjoy!

Blueberry Pie

I bought a few cartons of blueberries at Costco so that I could make blueberry jam. Well a week or two went by and all of the sudden it was time to do something with those bad boys... and so I decided to make a blueberry pie. This was my first attempt at making a blueberry pie and I think that it turned out rather well. Mine was a little bit runny- but next time I will know to add more flour.

The pie crust is easy breezy lemon squeezy. :)
- 2.5 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
10 tablespoons butter
10 tablespoons ICE cold water (up to 10 tablespoons)

Mix the flour, salt, shortening, and butter in a mixer or blender until the butter/shortening is about pea sized. Then add ice water one tablespoon at a time. I think that the original recipe (which I can't find anymore. I think I got this recipe from King Arthur flour... but now i can't find it) only called for 7-9 tablespoons of water. But for some reason or another 10 works for me in my altitude... or something.

Anyway you want to make sure that you make this in advance (i try to do it the night before) so by the time I'm ready to use it- it is nice and pliable. If you haven't done it the night before give it 2-3 hours to chill.

Filling-
5-6 cups (ish) of fresh blueberries
3/4 cup flour (maybe add another 1/2 ish cup because they are so juicy)
3/4 cup sugar
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon salt

Make sure your fruit is washed- and then kind of blot it with a paper towel to get some of the water off. Then fold in ingredients. Then assemble your pie. I like to do these fancy cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma. I heart them.

Before you put on the top of your pie add a few tabs of butter... it just makes it THAT much better. (i got that tip from my friend, Caralee- Hi caralee. :)

Anyway- the pie turned out it was a little soupy but super tasty.

Dixie Christensen's Cold Water Pie Crust

My mother was a champion pie crust maker. I observed her making many pies while growing up, but only started making pie crusts from scratch a few months ago. Here's my mother's recipe, with some clarifications from me, since her original recipe has just the very basics:

1 1/2 C flour
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 C shortening

Sift flour and salt together in bowl. Add shortening to flour mixture using a pastry cutter until mixture becomes somewhat granular. Add cold water a little at a time (probably not more than a few tablespoons), and work into dough. This is best done with your hands. The dough should be a little stiff. Roll out on well floured surface to size needed. Rub flour over the rolling pin as well. Bake as directed in the recipe you are using.

Makes enough for a 9" two crust pie.

Comments from Connie: Roll dough very thin for a 9" crust. You would probably want a thicker crust for a quiche.To pick up crust from the floured surface, peel it back slowly over the rolling pin that has been placed across the crust. Use rolling pin to lift crust to pie plate. Don't overwork the dough, as pie crust becomes tough the more it is handled. With my limited experience, I've found that the process is "trial and error".