Our Gastropost Mission this week started as a joke on Facebook, after they asked us to guess the next ______ vs. ______ Mission. Someone guessed Bacon vs. Everything Else, and they loved it so much it became the Mission for the week. I love it! The vs. Missions are my favourite, and I love a themed dinner, so I built my Oscars Dinner Menu around BACON!

I’ve had this Chicken & Bacon Pot Pie pinned for a while now, and was basically just looking for an excuse (and the time) to make it. The creamy chicken and bacon layer also has mushrooms and caramelized onions, and is topped with a sweet potato pastry crust. I used my maple leaf cookie cutter to stamp out little leaves to go on top. Cute, right?

With such a rich entree, I love a crisp green salad to balance everything out, but let’s get real, homemade garlic dressing and more bacon crumbled onto my favourite Caesar Salad can’t be mistaken for health food.

So let’s talk OSCARS! What did everyone think? We loved Reese Witherspoon and Jessica Chastain’s dresses, hated Anne Hathaway’s, loved J-Hud and Adele’s performances, still amazed that the bargain basement beaut herself is still around, love The Channer both on the red carpet with his cutie preggers wife and on stage dancing with Charliiiize, and best of all THIS and THIS.

Chicken & Bacon Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Pastry Crust

Source: slightly adapted from The Runaway Spoon (I added mushrooms and used a rotisserie chicken for the filling)

Ingredients

Filling

8 slices of bacon, sliced into 1/2″ pieces (use kitchen scissors for this)

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1 small package cremini mushrooms, sliced

2 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups milk

pinch nutmeg

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded

coarse salt + freshly ground black pepper

Crust

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

5 tbsp butter, cold and cut into cubes

1 cup mashed sweet potato (I baked two sweet potatoes in a 350 oven for an hour)

1 egg

+ buttermilk or milk to brush on top

Directions

1. In a large frying pan, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until brown and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove to a plate lined with a few paper towels. At this point you can reserve the bacon grease to cook with, or discard it and use olive oil, totally up to you. If you use the bacon grease, the filling will obviously be way more smoky and bacony.
2. In a large saucepan (I used my Le Creuset) heat 2 tbsp bacon grease or olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions to the skillet, and cook until golden brown and caramelized, about 20 minutes depending on your pan, you may need to lower the heat if things get too brown too quickly.
3. Add the butter to the onions, and when melted, add the flour. Stir until you can’t see the flour anymore. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth and then the milk, stirring constantly, then add the nutmeg and some salt + pepper. Raise the heat to medium high, until the mixture starts to bubble. You can throw the mushrooms in there too. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the filling is thick and bubbly, stirring frequently. Add the bacon and shredded chicken and stir to coat. Add the filling to a 2 1/2 quart baking dish and smooth the top. Set aside to cool.
4. For the pastry crust, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or a fork, until the butter is the size of peas. In a small bowl, whisk together the mashed sweet potato and egg, then add to the flour/butter mixture. Stir together with a spoon, and use your hands to knead together into a cohesive dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or so.
5. When you’re ready to bake it, roll out the pastry on a lightly floured counter. Either drape the whole thing over your baking dish and slice a vent in the top OR cut out cute little shapes and arrange them over top. Brush the pastry with buttermilk or milk and sprinkle with coarse salt.
6. Bake in a 375 oven for 45 minutes until hot and bubbly.