Chicken Pot Pie-Kitchen Sink Style

Two weeks ago I left my husband to go to Phoenix on a work trip. Being the good wife that I am, and since I had so many odds and ends in the refrigerator, I made him single serving chicken pot pies. This is a perfect recipe for two (with leftovers), or it makes 4 individual servings and you and the best part is you can add a variety of meats and vegetables to your pot pie.

Ingredients
1 tbs butter
1/2 onion chopped
1 clove of galic minced
1 carrot chopped (although I prefer 2 carrots) 
1 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 1/2 cup peas
1 cup chopped cooked chicken
1/2 cup flour
3 tbs butter
1 tbs salt
pepper
chopped parsley
1 tsp ground or fresh thyme
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2  pie crust (9-12 inch in diameter)
1 egg

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.

This recipe requires a decent amount of chopping.

Put a large pot on medium heat. Add the butter to the pot, once melted add in your garlic and onions and cook for about 2 minutes

Throw the carrots into the pot cooking for another 8 minutes, then add the mushrooms and cook for 4 more minutes.  Add the chicken and the peas into the pot and cook for 5 more minutes until the vegetables are slightly cooked. Pour in wine and cook down for another 5 minutes Put the vegetables and chicken into a bowl and set aside.

Keep the pot on medium heat and add the flour, let the flour heat up for about a minute and then add the butter. As the butter melts, whisk in the flour forming a doughy substance. Once the butter and flour are combined, toss in the thyme, parsley, salt and pepper. Slowly, add the chicken broth and then the white wine whisking thoroughly so there are no clumps. Stir in the heavy whipping cream last.

Cook for about 5 minutes, the broth should thicken into a gravy-like texture. Add the vegetables and chicken and get them well acquainted with the gravy.

Set the pot pie filling aside and let's work on the pie crust. I cheated and bought pie crust, but either way this will be the same process. Take a deep pie pan and lay the pie crust over the pan. Cut off any excess dough hanging over the sides.  Fill the pan with the pot pie filling. 

Take the second pie dough and lay it over the pot pie filling. Cut off any excess dough hanging over the sides. To finish off the pot pie, I like to crimp my edges with the fork along the outside of the pie pan. To finish it off, in a bowl mix the egg in a bowl until light yellow in color. Brush the egg over the crust.

I bought these small pie tins at the grocery store and they were made specifically for pot pies.

Bake for 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown. (The sad part of this post is that I never got any pictures of the finished pot pies!)

Sweet Potato Congee (Rice Porridge) by Michele

Congee (or jook in Cantonese) is a Chinese style rice porridge, which is made by cooking down rice in a copious amount of water. Depending on the amount of water you use, the consistency can range from a nice starchy soup to a tender risotto. Recipes for congees vary a great deal as well. Growing up, I enjoyed my grandma's jook, which consisted of ham, salt and soy sauce. Another popular version, which I have also tried, contains crab meat. But no matter what you put in it, congee is a great hardy all-in-one meal.

Lately, I have been doing a lot of experimenting with my congee. In a lot of ways it is a lot like risotto in the fact that it is a starchy base that goes great with a number of added goodies. In this particular recipe I used sweet potatoes, and garnished it with a simple fresh cucumber pickle.

Sweet Potato Congee

1-2 cups rice (short white grains)

2 cups chicken broth

1 cubed sweet potato

1/4 of a white onion diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 inch of garlic minced

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in the bottom of a deep skillet. Toss in the ginger, garlic, and onion. Once the onion is translucent, add the sweet potatoe and rice. Allow the oil to soak into rice for about a minute while you stir the contents. Add the chicken broth, plus enough water to cover the rice. Bring everything to a boil, while ocassionally stirring. Continue adding water until the rice begins to break down, and you reach your prefered consistancy. I like it to be slightly wetter than risotto. To finish it off, I add salt and pepper to taste.

While the congee is cooking, I like to figure out my toppings. I usually top my congee with an over-easy egg. Despite the fact that it is a total diet killer, it is just too darn good not to do it.

Another must-have congee topper is soy sauce. Right now in my kitchen I have this Double Black Soy Sauce from Koon Chun. It can been found in any well stocked Asian market. It actually has molasses as an ingredient. It pairs perfectly with this congee.

Lastly, I like to have chilled and freshly pickled cucumbers on my congee. The coolness of the pickle with the warmth of the congee make the flavors melt in your mouth.

Fresh Picked Cucumbers

sliced cucumbers

a splash of rice vinegar

a drizzle of sesame seed oil

I toss the cucumbers with the vinegar and oil, and then stick it in the refrigerator until I am ready for it. The longer the mixture sits, the more infused the cucumbers get.

Taco Tuesday: Tacos de Papas

Tonight was a what the heck do I have in the fridge, I guess I'll go to the pantry, and all I have are potatoes night. (I did a bad job grocery shopping plus produce has been looking very wimpy lately).

Ingredients
2 potatoes chopped into 1/4 inch cubes
1/4 onion chopped
1 jalapeno finely chopped
1 shallot sliced thin
4 tbs queso fresco crumbled
4-6 corn tortillas
2 tbs oil
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tbs salt
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin



This recipe is really that simple. To make up for a lack of veggies, serve with a side salad.

Put your skillet on medium high heat, add the olive oil to the skillet. Once the skillet is hot and the oil swirls around easily, add the onions and jalapeno, stirring around until the onions become translucent.

Add the potatoes onto the skillet. Turn the heat down to medium and keep stirring the potatoes around, there should be enough oil so they do not stick to the skillet. Add your spices (garlic powder, salt, paprika, onion powder and cumin), and mix around evenly.

Potatoes should cook for about 20 minutes. The larger the potato chunks, the longer it will take to cook, the smaller the potato chunks, the quicker it will take to cook. Every time I think of potatoes, I think of Hot Potato by The Wiggles. You're going to hate me for sharing this video with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWQCHb95rg

After you're done with the Wiggles, pickle your shallots in a bowl by adding 1 tbs sugar, 3 tbs white wine vinegar and your thinly sliced shallots. Let these sit while the potatoes are cooking. I know you're humming Hot Potato right now.

Heat up your tortillas to serve warm. I like to take a moist paper towel, wrap it around the corn tortillas and microwave for about 30-45 seconds. If the corn tortilla is not pliable, repeat this process.

To serve, add about 1/4 cup of potatoes to the corn tortilla and garnish with the pickled shallots, crumbled queso fresco, and for a little spice add your favorite hot sauce.

Weekend Brunch: Dutch Babies

Last night I roasted and shelled chestnuts. If you've never worked with chestnuts, their shells have a thick sharp outer layer and when you peel the chestnut out of the shell, your fingers get pierced and sliced. Since my fingers are still recovering, I'll keep this short. Dutch babies are like a pancake but baked, and fluffier, and better! Just like crepes, I know they'll make a comeback!

This is just a teaser. Imagine sugar & syrup on top of this!

Dutch Babies

1/3 cup of butter
1 cup of flour
1 cup of milk
4 eggs
1 tsp orange zest
powdered sugar and maple syrup for garnish

Turn your oven onto 400 degrees. Put the butter in the skillet and put it into the oven.

With a whisk or a mixer, combine the flour, milk, eggs and orange zest. Mix until smooth.

Take the hot skillet with melted butter out of the oven and pour the batter into the pan.

Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until the sides have poofed up and you see a golden brown crust on the outside of the dutch baby.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar over the dutch baby, cut into quarters and serve with syrup.

These babies are hot!

Ham Fried Rice

 

A quick disclosure for this recipe; I eat SPAM. I eat SPAM because my grandma grew up in Hawaii and ate it as a kid, she fed it to her kids, and her kids fed it to me. What does this have to do with Ham Fried Rice? Ham is actually a lot like SPAM. plus I have lots of leftover ham from Thanksgiving. Just like ham, you can eat SPAM in omeletts, over ramen, in sandwiches, fried with a side of eggs and my favorite: SPAM fried rice. For those of you that will never convert, Ham Fried Rice will be the closest you'll ever get to the lovely taste of SPAM.

Ham Fried Rice
3-4 cups of leftover cooked rice
2 tbs peanut oil or sesame oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 onion chopped
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 tbs garlic chopped
1/2 cup of peas
1 carrot chopped
1 cup of ham
2 eggs
4 tbs soy sauce
salt and pepper
Sliced green onions for garnish

This recipe should be done in a wok or a well aged skillet. I learned a couple of days ago while cooking this recipe in a friends nice new pan, that the fried rice will not yield the same flavor. Just think old=flavor.

With your skillet or wok on med-high heat add the sesame oil and peanut oil. Swirl the oil so it coats the pan. Add in your garlic and ginger, careful not to burn. After about half a minute add in the onions, once those three items become aromatic add your carrots, ham and peas and cook for about 5 minutes until tender.

Now we get to add the eggs. Build a well in the middle of the veggies and ham so that you have about a 5 inch wide circle. If your pan is getting dry, add a tad bit of oil to fry the egg. pour the eggs into the well and cook, scrambling the eggs along the way.

Once the eggs are cooked, add the cooked rice. The rice should stick a bit to the sides (think of it like they are caramelizing and picking up flavor) but don't let it stick so much that the rice burns.  Keep stirring the rice around and add soy sauce, pepper and salt. The rice should look light brown in color by the time it's done.

Turkey and Rice Soup by Michele

Thanksgiving night I rapped my turkey carcass up in foil and shoved it in the freezer for a rainy day. Thanks to Jacqui's last post, I decided to use it for turkey broth. Unfortunately, my eyes were bigger than my biggest pot, because the carcass didn't fit. I ended up having to hack what I could off from it so that it fit. I didn't have any veggies left over from a veggie platter, so I just threw in what I had; white onion, celery, and carrot (or in a single word, the mirepoix). I covered with water as directed and let it boil.

Once the veggies went limp, and the liquid became golden, I added some salt to taste, and then strained the contents. At this point, my whole apartment smelt like a turkey sandwich. From there, I decided to turn it into a classic broth soup.

In order to keep it nice and simple, I focused on only using a limited number of ingredients. Because I used the classic mirepoix for the broth, I chopped up a fresh new batch of onion, celery, and carrot for the soup.

~ 10 cups homemade turkey broth

2 stalks celery, 1 carrot, 1/4 white onion chopped

1 teaspoon fresh herbs finely chopped (rosemary, thyme, sage)

2 cups cubed turkey

1 cup brown rice

First, I added the mirepoix and rice to the broth. Once it came to a boil, I added the chopped herbs, which were left over from Thanksgiving. I kept this covered and simmering until the rice broke and became soft. At this point I added the cubed turkey, and let it simmer about ten more minutes.

The result was a very simple soup great for a cold rainy winter day. If you don't have a turkey carcass laying around, try doing this with the carcass and meat from a rotisserie chicken.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Tortilla Soup

Did you save your turkey carcass?

I did. I put it in a pot with the leftover veggies from the veggie platter (half an onion not even chopped or peeled, carrots, mushrooms, celery and two crushed garlic cloves skin on), topped it with water and made the best broth ever. Once you've made your own stock, store bought stock will taste stale and flavorless. From this day forward, promise me that if you have leftover bones save it for stock.

Yesterday I started my Christmas cards and brainstorming for gifts. I was able to make this soup in about 20 minutes after the broth was finished.

Turkey Tortilla Soup
Ingredients:
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 onion chopped
2 tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic minced
4 cups of turkey or chicken broth
1/2 cup of cilantro chopped
2 cups of chopped tomatoes (or canned tomatoes)
2 carrots sliced
1 1/2 cups of frozen or fresh corn
1/2 lime juiced
1 tbs salt
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups of shredded turkey
A couple of sprigs of cilantro for garnish
1/2 cup of tortilla chips or pan fried tortilla strips for garnish
1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese for garnish

On medium heat pour oil into the soup pot. Once the oil swirls around the pot easily, add the chili powder, garlic powder and cumin. Cook until the spices are fragrant.

 

Next add the onion, jalapeno and garlic, cooking until soft. Throw the carrots, tomatoes, cilantro and corn on top and stir it up until all the ingredients in the pot are hot and releasing a good steam. Add the shredded turkey to the pot and top it off by squeezing the juice of half the lime and pouring 4 cups of chicken broth into the pot.

 

Season with salt, sugar and pepper and cook for 30 minutes until the carrots are soft.

While the soup is cooking, cut up corn tortillas into strips. In a small skillet pour a tablespoon of olive oil and put the pan on medium heat. When the oil is hot, throw the tortilla strips into the pan and cook until the tortilla strips are slightly golden. There is an easy shortcut if you don't have time, you can just use tortilla chips.

Once the soup is finished, ladle the soup into bowls and top it off with a couple of tortilla strips, a pinch of shredded cheddar cheese and cilantro. Other toppers for the soup include: sour cream, avocado, queso fresco, whatever is available.

Put on a good movie, grab a cerveza and relax. No need to do anything else for a couple of hours.