This week, in honor of Pi Day, my math enthusiast friend and I made pie. My math-loving friend wanted to be adventurous, so rather than bake an apple pie or something sweet like that, she suggested that we make chicken pot pie. Not knowing much about this interesting sounding dish, I agreed to go along on this unexpected journey.
I called my friend to ask what I needed to get from the local grocery store to get this concoction going. After going through the list of ingredients, we agreed that I only needed to get some piecrust, since everything else we needed was readily available. Before hanging up, I was reminded to buy a dough crust, not a graham cracker crust, which was a good thing. If I had bought a graham cracker crust I would have insisted that we use it instead of going to buy a dough crust (something that would have made for a better story but probably not a better taste).
Seeing as my fridge was low on edible things and I was feeling lazy, I decided to buy something that was already made to accompany the chicken pot pie. I approached the section that has food already made. On the other side of the counter was a Hispanic lady. Always looking forward to speaking Spanish with a native Spanish speaker, I began to chat her up while I decided what to get. I finally decided to go with some macaroni and cheese. Having not eaten chicken pot pie before, I was unsure of what the appropriate side would be. It was between that and chicken wings, so I decided that my friend would probably think the macaroni and cheese more appropriate than the wings. I proceeded to ask for a quarter of a pound of macaroni and cheese in Spanish over the glass pane. The lady smiled and began to get what I had ordered. I turned around to see what products were available around me and to see if I should take anything else. When I returned to collect my quarter of a pound of macaroni and cheese, I was greeted with four pounds of macaroni and cheese. Yes, ten times the macaroni and cheese I had ordered. Not knowing what to do, I simply picked up the yellow block and proceeded to walk to the register.
Uncomfortable and unsure, I began to walk more slowly and a lot of questions and thoughts raced through my head: Can I tell her that she was wrong and ask her to do it again? What if her supervisors get mad at her? She was such a sweet lady, and I could be getting her in so much trouble? I can eat four pounds of macaroni and cheese. Well, I can share with other people. I can freeze it, too. That way it will last longer, right? Because that’s how that works.
Finally, I decided to just take the four pounds of macaroni and cheese. As I checked out the cashier looked at the macaroni and cheese and exclaim, “That’s a lot of mac and cheese!” Not wanting to admit my mistake and not wanting to get the nice lady in trouble, I awkwardly laughed and said, “Large dinner party.”
I carried the four-pound yellow brick in a paper bag and hoped that the bag wouldn’t rip, making a mess of the floor and making the situation even more awkward for me. Finally I made it back up to my apartment. My friend came over so that we could start making the chicken potpie. I contemplated calling the whole thing off and just eating mac and cheese, but that wouldn’t have been substantial for a cooking article. I also contemplated stuffing the pie with macaroni and cheese –– maybe next time.
We started by chopping up some onion and throwing it into a pot with butter. We were working from a recipe that my friend had memorized. As we went through the cooking process, we realized that I did not have a few of the things we actually needed. We decided to improvise and just modify the recipe. The first modification my friend was unhappy about was the butter. Apparently it was not real butter but something that was like butter. I exclaimed, “Paula Deen!” and we carried on with the cooking.
After the onion had changed color, we added a bag of frozen vegetables and pieces of chicken. After that cooked for some time, the real fun began. Not sure about the actual measurements needed to correctly make the recipes, a few “how does that look?” followed by “how does that look now?” were thrown around throughout the evening. We added milk and pepper to the vegetables and chicken broth. We continued to stir the mix for some time until my friend suggested that we add flour to the mix so that it would become thicker. Unsure of the right amount, I simply began to put my hand in the bag of flour and pour flour into the mix. A few fistfuls later, the mix actually got thicker. We let it cool down for a little bit while I tried to re-dough a piecrust for the top of the pie. We poured the mix into the pie and then covered it with the other dough. My friend proceeded to seal the edges of the pie by pressing her fingers against the edge. Afterwards we carved a Pi on the pie and placed it in the oven, which was preheated to 450 degrees. Unsure of how much time the pie would need, we set the timer to 20 minutes first. After opening the oven and not seeing a golden crust we decided to add 10 minutes. We took it out and realized that the crust hadn’t cooked all the way yet so we placed it back in the oven. After 15 minutes, out of hunger, we decided to just take it out and try it.
Accompanied by a few ounces of macaroni and cheese, the chicken potpie wasn’t bad at all. However, seeing as we really struggled with this we suggest that you actually look up the recipe rather than just wing it.
