Chicken Pot Pie Chowder

 We are only a few days away from the official start of spring... but we just had another big snow storm.  As much as I want to put my soup pot away,  we are still looking for hot and comforting meals to keep us warm.  I bought a rotisserie chicken the other day so I decided to make some homemade chicken stock.  The chicken stock helped me quickly make a pot pie chowder that  perfectly warmed us up so we could shovel our way out of the snow.

Ingredients:
8 cups chicken stock (see my homemade chicken stock below)
1 1/2 cup diced carrots
1 1/2 cup diced celery
1 medium onion chopped
1 (15oz) can corn drained
1 cup frozen green beans (optional)
2 large or 3-4 medium potatoes peeled and diced
2-3 cups diced or shredded chicken
1 tsp dried thyme
red chili flakes to taste
1/4 tsp granulated garlic
black pepper and salt to taste
granulated garlic if needed (optional)
2-3 Tbs flour
1 cup milk
1 Tbs butter
1 Tbs canola oil

Directions:

Heat butter and oil in large soup pot.  Add carrots, onion and celery and saute until vegetables start to cook.  Then add thyme, red chili flakes, salt, black pepper and granulated garlic.

 Next add flour and cook with other vegetables.  Add diced potatoes, chicken and chicken stock.

Cook for 20 minutes, until potatoes cook through.  Then add corn and green beans. Finally add milk.  Taste for salt and seasoning. Serve hot. Enjoy.

For homemade chicken stock: 
 Ingredients:
leftover roast chicken including any drippings from roast
1/2 large onion coarsely chopped
2 stalks of celery coarsely chopped
1 carrot coarsely chopped
Salt and black pepper to taste (I like to use whole peppercorns here too)
1 clove of garlic whole
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 bay leaves
Water to fill pot above chicken (10-12 cups)

Note: If you are preparing this stock without roasting the chicken first, just use some bone in chicken (about 2lbs worth).  Then add all other stock ingredients.

Directions for Stock:

Place all ingredients into pot and boil for 45 minutes.  Taste for seasoning.  After stock has boiled and reduced/concentrated in flavor strain stock away from the ingredients using a colander.  To do this I placed a large heat proof bowl (or another pan) under a colander.  Then I pour the stock through the colander and it separated the whole pieces from the stock.  I placed the strained stock back into my soup pot and then picked out all the good chicken meat off the bone. You may have to wait until the chicken cools off so you can handle it with your hands. Discard the boiled onions, celery, carrots because their flavor has been infused into the stock and is not longer needed.  

 Note:  if you have oil on top of the stock, just skim in with a spoon before proceeding.



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