I remember the first time I made a chicken pot pie completely from scratch.

It was early in quarantine, and I — like many of us at the time — was obsessively trying to make the most of everything we had in the house.

For the first time, I was routinely making chicken stock from carcasses and leftover cooked chicken meat. I was making buttermilk biscuits and creamy white sauces and spaghetti sauces from fresh tomatoes.

Pie crust was one of the last things I tried making from scratch.

I had always considered pie crust to be one of those nearly impossible recipes, the kind only homemakers in the 1940s made with any regularity.

My aunt had once shown me her secrets, explaining that using exceedingly cold water and minimizing mixing would make a light and tender crust.

Frankly, it all seemed pretty complicated.

Wouldn’t it be much easier, quicker, and only marginally more expensive to purchase the crusts in the refrigerated section of the grocery store?

Well, yes. Yes, it was.

Until one day it wasn’t. We practiced quarantine as faithfully as we were able, which meant that grocery store runs were practically nonexistent and grocery store pickups were planned well in advance.

So I learned to make pie crusts, which was surprisingly easy with the help of a food processor.

Flush with pride after that success, I tried doubling the crust recipe the next time.

It was already a two-crust recipe. Think of the time savings, I reasoned, by making four crusts at once!

Except that I burned the motor out of my food processor and was left with a large lump of wet flour.

Amelia: 0. Pie crust: 1. (Or four, if you are persnickety about your math.)

These days, I am back in the classroom by day, so coming home to make a from-scratch pie crust isn’t always possible.

In fact, some nights I have to really fight myself to cook at all.

So I have learned what I need to do to make meals pleasant but not overly burdensome.

For example, this weekend, I cooked an entire family pack of chicken breasts, butterflying and brining each one before I seasoned and cooked them in a 450 degree oven.

After they rested, I chopped them up. The first night, we had them over a bed of lettuce, rice, and black beans, drizzled with creamy cilantro-lime salad dressing.

The next, I mixed some into an alfredo sauce and served it over angel hair pasta.

Then we finished them up as pot pie: they were mixed into a pot of root vegetables with a creamy chicken gravy and baked in a pie crust.

It was store-bought. What can I say? The grocery store is convenient again.

CHICKEN POT PIE

Ingredients
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 onion, diced
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced (about 1 cup diced)
2-3 small potatoes, peeled and diced (about 1 1/2 cups diced)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth (I used water and Better Than Bouillon)
2 cups cooked, diced chicken meat
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 pie crusts

Directions
■ Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Melt butter in pan. Add onion, carrot and potato cubes to melted butter. Cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables begin to soften. Add flour to vegetables. Stir to coat. Cook for about another 1 minute after vegetables are coated.
■ Pour chicken broth into pan. Stir broth well, taking care to scrape the browned bits of flour and vegetables off the bottom of the pan. The broth should thicken fairly quickly; stir frequently to help prevent scorching. Allow vegetables to continue cooking until they are edible but a bit underdone.
■ While you wait for the vegetables to cook, prepare the pie pan: oil the pie plate and add one pie crust to the bottom of it. Set aside.
■ To the vegetable mixture on the stove, add chicken, milk and seasonings. Stir and taste, adding additional salt or other seasonings as necessary.
■ When flavor is satisfactory, pour mixture into prepared pie plate. Top with second pie crust if desired, using the tip of a knife to make slits for steam to escape. Place pie plate on a baking sheet to catch spills. Bake in oven for about 20 minutes, until top crust is golden brown.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.