mini veggie pot pie for the revolution!

when it was announced that pot pies were the theme for this month's revolution, i was psyched. i love me some yummy pot pies. the only problem is that i kind of stopped eating them when i became vegetarian again. sure, there are veggie pot pies, but what i really loved and craved were steaming hot chicken pot pies of wonder years gone by. so since then (seven years ago?) i have been deprived of the singular pleasure of the deliciousness of creaminess covered in pie dough. then last winter i said, enough of this denial, i need a pot pie! we made one from deborah madison and it was like a dream. so creamy, so full of vegetables. but i just couldn't help but feel like it was missing ... chicken :(

so for a chance at a redux, i couldn't wait! especially tonight when it's so windy cold on the first day of spring! this time we went with the mr. mimi SOP (standard operating procedure) recipe. and because i didn't want to be bothered with cooking an entire chicken from the farmer's market in advance, i decided to use fake chicken. haha. i know! what was i thinking?


because a bit of time management issues, i had to make the pie dough this afternoon. typically i like to make the dough at least a day in advance so it gets a real good chill before rolling and baking, but it is what it was. i had been wanting to try out the flaky pie dough recipe given by julia. remember the old adage to trust your eyes (and nose and fingers) when baking and not the recipe? you know, if it says brown in 30 minutes and yours is brown in 20 minutes, take it out of the oven! yes, i do know this. and yet, as i was streaming in the cup of ice water i could hear myself: "self, look how it's all balling together moist, i think this is enough water, despite the fact that i still have a good 1/3 cup left." and then you know what i did?? i foolishly continued: "self, but julia says 1 cup, so there goes 1 cup!" of course you know the rest of the story. it was a wet, gluteny, ball of dough. sure it would be edible. but it wouldn't be flaky.

faced with either: (a) buying some puff pastry or (b) using that wet ball anyway i decided on (c) let's try another round. this time i used the old recipe from joy of cooking that i've done before. and this time i trusted myself. came together crumbly but slightly moist. it looked and felt like the beginning of the perfect measure of flakiness!



so here are two little mini veggie pot pies with faux chicken. aesthetically, i wished the top browned a little more but they were absolutely delish (even if i did run out of top crust because i mistook how big my so-called "single serving size" le creuset dishes are!) i can't wait to see what our next revolutionary tactic will be!

oh yeah, and next time ... i think i'll get a real chicken from the farmer's market :)