She cooks and picks down the chicken and then adds carrots and celery along with potatoes and corn to the broth and simmers it uncovered for about 2 hours. Then she adds in a container of swanson chicken broth and cooks covered for another hour. As far as the meat pies she just sprays cooking oil on the pan and lines them with pie dough. Stuff it full and put a top cover of pie dough. Then we place them on a cookie sheet and flash freeze them overnight. Tomorrow we will bag and vacuum seal each one individually. They stay nice and will keep for many months. When I cleaned out the one freezer there were 2 behind the tomatoes we bagged and froze this summer so I ate them right up.:tooth