Mini chicken pie tartlets / chicken pot pie

One of my favourite things to do is to take a recipe or a dish and adapt it to make something smaller. I often find recipes overwhelming because the portions are usually meant to feed 6-8 people, which is a lot of food. (And to be honest, I'm sometimes just too lazy to do the math). But over the last few years, I've gotten pretty comfortable (through lots of trial and error) with tinkering. I once made chicken pot pie from scratch - pie crust, roasted chicken - and it took forever. After thinking through the basics, I decided to do something much simpler - namely buying a roast chicken (or using leftovers) and the pie crust.

Since then, I've adapted the recipe again and turned it into finger foods. The end result? Mini chicken pie tartlets, or "home made" chicken pot pies

Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (or the leftovers from roasted chicken...at least 1/2 though)
- 2-3 cups of frozen mixed veggies (more chicken = less veggies, and vice versa)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
- pinch of salt
- 1 can of cream of mushroom soup (low sodium)
- 1/2 cup of skim milk (or if you like more flavour, actual cream)
- 2 big pie shells or 12 mini pie shells


Directions
- Defrost pie shells
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees celcius
- Separate the cooked chicken from the bones and shred / cut into small pieces
- Pour oil into a large pan and wait for the pan to heat
- Once the oil starts popping, toss in the minced garlic with the salt
- Lower the heat to medium as soon as the garlic starts to brown (approximately 15-20 seconds)
- Toss in the frozen vegetables
- Cook the veggies on medium heat for 3-5 minutes
- Toss in the chicken
- Open the cream of mushroom soup and pour into the mixture
- Add the milk
- Stir until the soup and milk are evenly distributed
- Wait until the mixture starts to bubble a bit and remove from the heat
- Take the defrosted pie shells out of the box
- Add the filling to one of the pie shells (or half the small shells) - be careful not to overfill
- Take a little bit of water, and with your finger, wet the edge of the pie shell
- Take the remaining pie shell, turn it upside down and put it on top of the pie shell
- Pinch the edges of both pie shells so that they stick together
- Using a fork, poke a few holes into the top of the pie (this allows steam to escape...otherwise your pie could explode)
- Place the pie in the oven and let it cook for 50 - 60 minutes (or until the crust is golden brown)
- Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes
- Enjoy