How to Make Easy Chicken Pie Southern

 

Easy Southern Chicken Pie

Ingredients for casserole:

1 chicken cooked and diced (save the broth from cooking the chicken for the broth in the recipe)

1 1/4 cup chicken broth 

1 can 15 oz Campbell's cream soup (my favorite in this recipe is cream of mushroom)

Directions:

Cook your chicken down in a pot and use the broth, or get a rotisserie chicken and pick that off and just buy broth. 

Heat the broth and soup in a small pan until smooth.

Break up or dice chicken while soup mixture is heating.

Put chicken in a casserole dish. Mine here is 8 x 11. Pour the soup mixture over the chicken and smooth or shake casserole dish lightly. 

Ingredients for the crust:

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper (I like to add more)

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 stick real butter, softened

1 cup milk

Directions for crust:

Mix the salt, pepper, and baking powder with the flour.

Cut the stick of butter into the flour mixture. You can use a fork if you don't have anything else to cut butter with.

Pour in the milk and mix. Don't over mix. It is fine to have some lumps in the batter.

Pour the  batter on top of the chicken and soup.

Bake at 325 F for 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

This is a recipe from the Woodleaf Methodist cookbook that Mrs. Ratledge for high school graduation in 1980. I am sure you can do math. At this posting, the cookbook is 43 years old and counting. I've used the cookbook so much that it is falling apart, and this is one of my favorite recipes in the book.

I like that this is easier than a lot of chicken pie recipes, and it also tastes great. My favorite part is the crust with the bite of baking powder and kick of black pepper. I usually sprinkle a little extra black pepper over the top at the end. 

This crust works fine for any kind of casserole dish that has a top crust, so that's nice too. One of these days I will make a from scratch cream with the chicken, but it is nice to have a pour and go recipe that requires almost no work.

 

Lava Java Cake - crock pot dessert recipe

 

Chocolate Lava Java Cake – in the Crock Pot
Cyndi Allison
 

Ingredients:
 

1 box of chocolate fudge cake mix – 15.25 ounces
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 ¼ cup fresh brewed coffee still warm but not hot (or can use water)
1 box instant chocolate pudding mix – 3.9 ounces
2 cups milk
12 ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips
 

Directions:
 

1. Mix together the cake mix with oil and eggs. Mix a couple of minutes and slowly add in the
coffee. Don’t overmix here, or the cake will be tough. So, it’s fine to have some lumps.
2. Mix together the pudding mix and milk in another bowl and let it sit to thicken up a bit. This
does not take long.
3. Spray your larger size crock pot with non stick spray and then pour in the cake mix. Shake the
pot lightly so that it evens out.
4. Put the pudding mix on top of the cake mix. Use a big spoon and just put dallops of the pudding
around on top of the cake batter.
5. Sprinkle the chocolate chips around on top of the pudding/cake batter.
6. Cover and cook for three hours on high. Do not lift up the lid while cake is cooking.

Serve hot plain or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I always like to say a little about the recipes I put here on Half Fast Cook. These are family favorites or ones I try out and really like for various reasons.

Lava Java Cake was made for a pot luck at the west branch of Rowan Public Library. All these years, we never had a library. Now we do. YAY!

The librarians at west branch are really phenomenal. They help with check out ideas and plan up programs and are just all 'round great. One ongoing program that I especially like is the pot luck that Lyndsey puts together. Neighbors sign up with recipes to bring, and Lyndsey collects and prints up recipe booklets with all the recipes.

This month (Feb 2023) the theme was crock pot. I thought about Taco Soup (which I need to post here), but I thought someone else might bring that one. It is a popular crock pot meal in the area. Then, I thought about a dessert. I'm not supposed to have sugar (or not much), so I don't make sweets often now. With a pot luck, I could make the dish, and then most of it would be eaten (assuming it tasted decent).

I thought about things I make in a crock pot, and I could not think of a dessert that I've made. I'm sure I have made some, but they must not have been memorable. So, I dug in online and with my cookbooks and found several cakes that sounded interesting. The lava cakes seemed perfect for a crock pot, so I honed in on those. I had to flip a coin between chocolate and chocolate/cherry. Since I made Cherry Yum Yum for a pot luck earlier, I thought chocolate would be a good pick.

I decided to use coffee in place of the water in the cake part of the recipe. I bought some coffee pods that must have been designed to wake the dead - way too strong for me. I pulled one of those out and brewed a cup for the cake and mixed that in with the mix, oil, and eggs. 

One thing I know for sure is that my house smelled amazing. I could even smell coffee and chocolate out in the driveway. I only hoped the cake would be as good as the smell.

On my way to the pot luck, I swung by the Food Lion (which is new in town) and got Cool Whip. I kind of wish I had planned ahead and whipped my own cream, but the Cool Whip was fast and easy, and it was good on the cake.

The best I can describe Lava Java Cake (a name I just made up) is ooey-gooey - as a lava cake should be. The batter set up nice and was moist, and the pudding made little puddles of chocolatey goodness all through the cake. Think of the center of a chocolate cream doughnut - something like that. 

Lava Java Cake is at its very best when hot - very decadent. The Cool Whip just melts and adds that nice dairy extra to the cake. It's also good warmed up in the microwave and even just  room temp or cold. 

I had to add Lava Java Cake here with my favorites, and I am sure I will make it again when I'm feeding a group. It's super easy to make and comes out perfect at three hours at high with no lifting the crock pot lid.