Chicken Pot Pie Cook Along

Today is the day! There is a wonderful gardening site where a group of us meet up. We're friends from around the country and the world meeting up to share friendship, recipes, tips, laughs and sometimes sorrows, and also commiserate about our "dish disease" (our penchance for collecting dishes.)

Several times a year we have virtual parties and cook alongs; today is the day for our...

Several of us bought these chicken shaped baking dishes over the past year or so (from Sur la Table ~ and on sale!) Some of us will use these, and others will bring their own creativity to the table.

Please go check out my friend Jain's BEAUTIFULLY colorful pot pies on her blog~ they are works of ART: Jain's Blog

Once in a Blue Moon Iris.

And others will be appearing later today on the WFD section.

In this recipe, I substituted my favorite; thyme, for fresh sage in the filling.

Instead of my absolute favorite herb pastry crust, I used thinly sliced red potatoes for the topping. I sliced them using the mandolin, then steamed them.

I placed the chicken and vegetable filling (lots of chunks of poached chicken breasts with lightly steamed carrot slices, peas, and little pearl onions, stirred into an herbed bechamel sauce) in the baking dishes, then placed one layer of slightly overlapping potato slices on the top, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with a mix of buttery-herb breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan cheese.

For the "feathers" I toasted some fresh sage leaves (stove top) in a little olive oil and tucked them in under a potato slice.

I love Sage Brown Butter Sauce on pasta, the sage leaves turn delicately crispy and lose their pungent bite when prepared this way. Soo good!

Proclaimed a "keeper"... it was very good, and a nice change...

But I still prefer my herb pastry crust.