Chicken Not Pie

Every once in a while, DC and I will see a commercial for some type of food, or we’ll be within reach of something, and I will exclaim, “Oh my freaking gosh I love ____ !!!!”  and usually, DC looks at me with his you-are-a-piece-of-work face and is astonished that I would ever think to put such an evil food in my mouth.

Some examples:  Chinese food, powdered donuts (which I have requested for my birthday.  I’m not here to be judged), Chicken Fried Steak, Oreos, onion rings, all Mexican food, milkshakes…all things I could eat every single day if I did not have a thing called extreme will power (ha!).  But seriously, I know that if I eat even one bite of any of those foods, I’m done for and will pay for it later when I am trying to run and can’t breathe because of the burger lodged in my diaphragm.  So, I do not touch. 

Anyway, this happened the other night with chicken pot pie.  I saw it on TV, told DC I love it, he shunned me, and I was dreaming about a pie made of chicken and vegetables and fatty crust.  I think.  Now that I’m writing this, I am thinking maybe it didn’t happen this way.

Anyway, some facts (if you’re trying to eat healthy or lose weight, I urge you to educate yourself!  So many people try to lose weight by eating what they think is healthy, but come to find out, it isn’t!  Email me if you need some resources or have questions- not that I’m an expert, I just read a lot about it and have been practicing a while-link on the left sidebar):

• A normal chicken pot pie has an average of 500 calories per serving (I just based this on about 5 different nutritional facts I read for different CPPs).   A serving is typically a cup, so, in one single pot pie, you are probably getting about 2 servings.  Maybe more.
• It also has an average of 9 grams saturated fat per serving.  For the average adult, your target saturated fat intake should be less that 10% of your total caloric needs.  If you need 2000 calories a day, you should eat 20 grams or less saturated fat per day.  2 servings of a hot CPP and you’re pretty much done for the day.

In an effort to change the way we are eating (side note: we are very healthy eaters; we are trying to eat more naturally with less processed foods), we picked up Mark Bittman’s book, Food Matters for some research and new recipes, and the first one we tried was Chicken Not Pie.  I was stoked, because as stated before, I love Chicken Pot Pie.

This was our first time to cook with leeks. 

They’re just big green onions, like the size of my arm, and I could probably eat a whole one.

What?!

 

Add some low sodium vegetable broth, lots of spices (try to avoid salt) and some white wine.  You can use water to sub for the broth if you want.

Throw in 2 chicken breasts, cook until almost done all the way through, then take them out and cut them in bite sized pieces

Chop 2 potatoes, add to the leek goodness

Add some carrots and peas (we used snap peas) or whatever you want

add the chicken again

Voila.

We liked it a lot.  Super healthy, very natural, and very light.  Next time we will only use one potato and add more of the wine and broth (but that’s just us).  Also, if you absolutely have to have the bread that you’re missing in not having a crust, I think it could be good served on top of half of a toasted whole wheat English muffin.