CHICKEN POT PIE CALZONE

The fall is such a great time of year. And one of my favorite fall/winter foods is Chicken Pot Pie. This is another recipe from the mom vault and one that I'm particularly fond of. I've made some slight changes to the flavor but it's still pretty much the way mom used to make it.

A few weeks ago I made a traditional Chicken Pot Pie using my mom's recipe. My favorite part are the edges of the pie that get a little crunchy and flaky. So when I started craving it again this past week I thought, what's stopping me from making it into a calzone. First I thought about using puff pastry and phyllo dough and while I love the flakey, light crunchy texture, the sauce in pot pie needs something stronger to hold everything inside (although I encourage you to try this out in phyllo dough or puff pastry and tell me if it works out). So ultimately, in the spirit of the change of seasons I made a Chicken Pot Pie Calzone.

It's everything you think it is--Chicken Pot Pie INSIDE a calzone with sauce reserved for dipping (a substitute for the traditional calzone marinara dipping sauce). Here's what it looks like.

Mom's Chicken Pot Pie...Inside a Calzone

Ingredients:

-3 cups of your favorite veg (in this case I used potato, peas, carrots, and onion)

-3 cups of milk

-Frozen pizza dough (I bought two bags of dough which renders about four mammoth sized calzones. Buy just one bag of dough if you're cooking for just one person or don't care about batch cooking for future meals).

-A pinch of rosemary

-1 tsp of celery salt

-A healthy pinch of salt

-A healthy pinch of fresh ground pepper

-1 T of garlic powder

-2 T Thyme

-1 scrambled egg

-1/2 a stick (or 1 full stick if you went to the gym today) of butter

-1/2 a cup of flour

-2 chix boullion cubes

-2 chicken breasts chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

*Pre-heat your oven for 375 degrees F*

Cut/dice your veg first. In a large soup pot over medium heat, melt your butter then add the flour whisking until it begins to clump up then add the milk, one cup at a time when the sauce gets heavy, whisking to combine. Add your chix boullion cubes, healthy pinches of salt, garlic powder, pepper, your celery salt and Thyme and stir until it's incorporated. If your sauce is really heavy, you may opt to add a little more milk, but remember, since this is going inside a calzone, you want the sauce to be on the heavy side and less on the soupy side so that it doesn't spill out. Bring your heat down to a simmer and add your veg and the chicken (remember you don't want to cook this fully since it will finish off in the oven. Dust your cutting board with flour and roll out your dough cutting it into whatever size you want for your calzones. Scramble an egg and have a pastry brush on hand. Add your filling into your calzones, seal with some egg wash around the edges, and brush the top of each calzone with the remaining egg wash. Lightly dust the top of the calzones with a pinch of rosemary. Pop in the oven for 30 minutes then let rest for 5 minutes before cutting or serving with excess sauce for dipping.