Chicken Pot Pie

My dear husband and I spent the weekend in Lawrence. Saturday was spent with my husband and his grandfather under my car, replacing the sway bar link that broke a few weeks ago and has been held together with duct tape since then. (I feel so white trash saying that!) Then today we went to the KC Renaissance Festival. My husband did NOT wear his pirate costume this time, which was kind of a relief. Until I have a costume I can wear, too, I feel pretty weird being the chick in jeans walking around with Captain Barbossa.

Of course, once we got home we were both pretty worn out. I decided to try and throw together something new for dinner that hopefully wouldn't be TOO hard. I started with this recipe (found via Pinterest) and made some changes. My apologies if the instructions aren't great--I don't have a lot of experience writing out my own recipes! I also apologize for the lame cell phone picture.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie
Ingredients:
1-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
3-4 small red potatoes
1 box chicken broth
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables, thawed (peas/carrots/corn/green beans)
1 can cream of chicken soup
Seasonings (I used a bay leaf and a little sage and thyme).
1 cup all-purpose baking mix (like Bisquick)
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I used a stoneware pie plate and put it in the oven as it was heating so the stone would be nice and hot.
2. Heat chicken broth in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Chop your potatoes into small, bite-sized pieces and put into hot broth. After 5 minutes or so, add your chicken pieces. You want your potatoes and chicken to be cut small enough to cook quickly. I threw the bay leaf in while these were cooking for a little extra flavor.
3. Stir chicken and potatoes occasionally until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are fork-tender. (Maybe 10 minutes once your chicken has been added.) Drain, but retain some of the chicken broth to go in your pot pie. (At this point, I removed the bay leaf and discarded.) 
4. Chop or shred your chicken until it is in small, bite-sized pieces, if needed. (Use your best judgment--if you like bigger chunks of meat, you may not need to cut further.) 
5. Put potatoes, chicken, and mixed veggies into a bowl. Add cream of chicken soup. Stir, adding in small amounts of broth until everything is well mixed. (Maybe 1/2 cup broth total.) Try not to have TOO much excess liquid or your pie may be too full (mine was!) Season to your taste (I just shook in a little sage and thyme.)
6. Pour your chicken/veggie mixture into pie plate and put in oven. (Since my pie plate was already in the oven, I just pulled out the rack and poured it in.) If you have 2 racks in the oven, it might be a good idea to put an empty baking sheet on the rack below your pie plate to catch any liquid that bubbles over.
7. While your chicken and veggies are heating in the oven, mix together the baking mix, egg, and milk. Carefully pour/spread the baking mix over the hot chicken/veggie mixture in your pie plate. It may or may not cover the entire surface. Hopefully your pie plate won't be as full as mine was--I had quite a few drips as I added the biscuit mixture on top. Thankfully I had that baking sheet in place!
8. Cook for 20ish minutes. Keep an eye on it--depending on your oven and your baking mix, the biscuit part may cook in more or less time. Remove when the biscuit top is nice and golden brown.

I've tried similar recipes  before and always had trouble getting the biscuits on top to cook completely. The bottoms usually are super doughy. I think that having the filling already hot and then just pouring the biscuit batter on top (instead of forming and cutting out full, thick biscuits) helped the batter to cook all the way through. My husband ate two big helpings and practically licked his plate clean, so I think it was a success!