Switch on your slow cooker to high and add a couple of mm of water in the bottom. Look out a thick bottomed frying pan and your oil. This recipe is not cut and dried. There is very little that can go wrong, so choose how many people you will feed to decide how much you make ingredient wise. When you know your amounts, it is easy to judge how much of everything else that you need.

Lightly fry your chicken in a tablespoon of rapeseed oil, so that the edges all round have gone white. Once the meat has been sealed, it can be added to your slow cooker.

Choose which vegetables you use. I had 6 chicken breasts, and I added 2 chopped onions and 2 sliced carrots to my pan with the remaining rapeseed oil. I lightly fried those before adding them to the slow cooker.

I add another cup or two of water to half cover the ingredients, give it all a quick stir and pop on the lid. It can be left for 4 hours on high, or turn it down to low for approximately 7 - 8 hours.

When it's ready, you can thicken the gravy if you wish by using cornflour mixed in water, and adding it slowly until you reach the thickness of gravy that you prefer as a cook.

Spread the slow cooked chicken evenly along the bottom of a baking tray.

Roll the puff pastry out until it is the size you need to cover your baking tray. Lay it over the top, press the edges down and use a fork to make holes in the pastry at reglar intervals. You don't have to be perfect with the edges.

Some people will baste the top with egg or milk. For puff pastry, I never bother, and it always comes out fine. After being in the oven at approximately 220 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the pastry rises, take it out and score the top. The lovely flaky texture of the pastry makes a pie almost a whole meal in itself.

The lovely flaky texture of the pastry makes a pie almost a whole meal in itself.