Chicken Pot Pie from Scratch… From Egg to Oven

This quintessential hometown dish has so many iterations, modern updates, and twists, it called out to us as the perfect challenge to serve at the 10th Annual Harvest Dinner this year.  Today chicken pot pies are too often a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle poured into a frozen pie crust.  We are setting out to build a chicken pot pie from scratch…

Step 1:  Maintain 95 degree brooding habitat for your chicks.  Feed them delicious organic feed, full of protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Step 2: Raise these chicks until their feathers grow in (approx. 3 weeks) gradually reducing temperature in their brooding box until it reaches average outside temperature.  Stand back and try to imagine how these creatures once fit into a tiny egg! They grow so fast!

Step 3: Move the pullets and cockerels outside onto pasture, where they live in portable coops for the rest of their lives.  Move these coops to distribute their manure evenly over the pasture- fertilizing and replenishing the soil- while giving the birds a healthy dose of omega-3 and other key amino acids gained through eating fresh greens.

Step 4: Using humane, kosher slaughtering technique, kill, scald, pluck, and eviscerate the birds when they weigh approximately 4 pounds.  It took an average of 11 weeks!  Incredible efficiency of converting feed to meat.  The fat and meat is rich with beta carotin, conjugated linoleic acids, and omega-3s.

Step 5: Poach the birds and flake off the meat.  Throw the carcasses back into the pot to make thick chicken stock.

Step 6: Using GFS onions, carrots, and all kinds of other local veggies, cook up a delicious filling for the pot pie!  Using Mendocino Grain Project wheat and local dairy, roll out some flake pastry… bake to combine!

Step 7:  Pair with local wines, delicious seasonal side dishes, great friends and conversation, and more at the Harvest Dinner, Little Lake Grange on September 19 at 6 pm.