A budget-friendly vintage spin on chicken pot pie

With the much anticipated return of autumn, comes the blessed relief of no longer feeling like you are going to melt as quickly as the Wicked Witch of the West if you spend more a few minutes in the kitchen with your oven switched on.

If you're anything like me, this means that you very quickly find yourself in the mood for hearty, stick-to-your-ribs, comfort food meals again. Seemingly over night, roasted root vegetables to mountains of mashed potatoes, crock pot stews, long simmered chillies, juicy meatloaves, and fragrant spice cookies all fall, completely naturally, back into rotation once more.

Without a doubt (thanks, I'm certain, to the utterly mouth-watering ones my mom maid when I was little), one of my all-time favourite fall and winter foods is a flakey, golden, drippingly saucy chicken pot pie chocked full of tender, cream enrobed veggies.

As much as I flip for a great pot pie, I like saving a bit of money wherever I can just as much, and today's charming illustrated 1950s recipe for Penny-Wise Chicken Pie ensures that I'm able to do both of those things in one fell swoop.




{The culinary equivalent to a cozy fleece blanket, chicken pot pie recipes like this simple, speedy one are a beloved staple of autumn and winter. Image via Charm and Poise on Flickr.}



This recipe economizes by forgoing actual pieces of chicken meat and instead using a can of condensed cream of chicken soup, which is deliciously partnered with potatoes, carrots, and peas. Of course, if you happen to have any chicken (or turkey - or even ham) to hand or in the mood to splash out and buy some, you could always add a helping of meat to this recipe, too.

And speaking of adding things, feel free to play around with the vegetables. I often use parsnips instead of (or along with) carrots, toss in some corn or green beans, or even some tiny florets of cauliflower.

By the same token, if you wanted to take this easy to make dinner recipe in a somewhat different direction (and potentially turn it into a vegetarian meal) you could always use a different cream soup as well (think cream of broccoli, asparagus, or mushroom, for example).

Aside from being relatively kind on the ol’ wallet, this classic dish is wonderful because you can toss it together most any day with store cupboard ingredients that you likely already have one hand (especially if you keep homemade or store bought pie crusts in the freezer).

A point which makes it an especially useful pot pie recipe to have at the ready during busy cold weather nights of after school events, Halloween parties, and long walks through the crispy leaf strewn streets that only exist for a brief, gorgeous time during the fall.