Chicken Pot Pie-less

This is my second chicken pot pie I made in two weeks. Why? Two reasons – because it is sooo good and comforting in this cold weather and easy to just heat up for lunch and because I roasted 2 birds. I have no idea why I roasted two birds at once, but it ended up working out because I got two of these chicken pot pie's out of them. Thats how good they were. This is a perfect way to use up leftover roast chicken. It's hot, saucy and packed with carrots and peas as well. Instead of using actual pie crust, I was lazy and just whipped some yukon gold potatoes as a topping. The original recipe by Martha used phyllo dough instead of heavy pie crust which would have been wonderful but I didn't have any in the freezer, so the mashed potatoes were a perfect alternative. It's kind of like a shepherds pie but instead of ground meat there's chicken. You can either poach a whole bird or use any leftover chicken you have and hand-shred it. You don't need a whole bird for this recipe. There's lots of ways to use up leftover chicken — chicken quesadillas, chicken salad, bbq chicken sandwiches, and of course chicken pot pie-less! Chicken Pot Pie-less 1 tablespoon butter 2 medium shallots 1 garlic clove, minced salt and peppa 1 1/2 cups chicken stock 2 tablespoons flour 4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally leftover roast chicken, shredded 3 tablespoons parsley 1/2 cup slightly thawed frozen peas 3-4 yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered 1 Preheat oven to 425. Cover your peeled quartered potatoes with cold salted water and bring to a boil. 2 Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan and soften the shallots, garlic, salt and pepper over medium heat. Cook until all the flavors are melded together and pour in 1 cup of the chicken stock. Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup chicken stock into the flour in a separate bowl. Whisk into shallot mixture and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Reduce to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes, will thicken. 2 Add carrots into the saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in shredded chicken to coat and return to a boil. 3 Remove from heat and stir in chopped parsley and peas. Transfer to a baking casserole dish. 4 While the chicken mixture is cooling, drain your potatoes and mash them up until smooth. Season again with salt and pepper. You can use a hand beater too for extra creaminess. 5 Spread the mashed potatoes over the chicken mixture in one even layer. Using a fork, make peaks in the potatoes by dragging the tines of the fork in large sweeping circles. Pop into the oven until the mashed potatoes are golden brown.