Chicken Mushroom and Bacon Pie

It is apparently celebrity week here at Sidewalk Shoes. I have covered Emeril, Jamie Oliver, and now Nigella Lawson. Do you want to know why, I've managed to hit all these high notes? I'll tell you. It's my new organization schedule.

I love a schedule. I adore schedules. You probably noticed, since I post garden photos on Tuesdays, cat photos on Saturdays, and wine or book reviews on Sundays. No one told me to post those things on those days, that is just the wonderful control freak scheduler that I am. So, anyway back to my new schedule. Well...lets back up. On my old schedule, I planned my menus on Thursdays and Fridays because I went grocery shopping on Saturday. The problem was that by Thursday and Friday, I'm tired, school is annoying, and planning the menu is not fun, it's work. So, I changed it. I plan my menus on Sunday. Lovely Sunday, where I can take as much time as I need. Now menu planning is a leisure activity. Time to browse through more books, thumb through magazines, click through internet pages. I know what you're thinking. But Pam, you go grocery shopping on Saturday, how do you plan your menus on Sunday?? Easy. I plan for not the next week, but the week after that! See right now, I know what I'm making this weekend, and I know what I'm making next week. Crazy, right?!

So, anyway, thanks to the beauty of my new schedule I'm able to find gems like this Chicken Mushroom and Bacon Pie from Nigella. Seriously! A chicken pot pie with no silly peas or carrots, instead it has bacon and mushrooms. I don't even have to tell you how good this was.

Chicken Mushroom and Bacon Pie
Serves 2


3 slices bacon, cut or scissored into 1-inch strips
1 teaspoon garlic infused oil (I just used olive oil)
2 cups chestnut mushrooms, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces (I used cremini)
8 ounces chicken thigh fillets cut into 1-inch pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/4 cups hot chicken stock
1 tablespoon Marsala
1 (13-ounce) 9 by 16-inch sheet all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Fry the bacon strips in the oil until beginning to crisp, then add the sliced mushrooms and soften them in the pan with the bacon.


Turn the chicken strips in the flour and thyme (you could toss them about in a freezer bag), and then melt the butter in the pan before adding the floury chicken and all the flour left in the bag. Stir around with the bacon and mushrooms until the chicken begins to color.


Pour in the hot stock and Marsala, stirring to form a sauce and let this bubble away for about 5 minutes.


Make a pastry rim for each of your pots for the pies, by this I mean an approximately 1/2-inch strip curled around the top of the pots. Dampen the edges to make them stick.


Cut a circle bigger than the top of each pie-pot for the lid, and then divide the chicken filling between the two.


Dampen the edges again and then pop on the top of each pie sealing the edges with your fingers or the underneath of the prongs of a fork.


Cook the pies for about 20 minutes turning them around half way through cooking. Once cooked, they should puff up magnificently