Chicken Pot Pie 2

 

Okay, I admit it, we've visited Chicken Pot Pie before.  And yes, that recipe is still one of my favorites.  However, this is the perfect recipe for when you are just too busy to make pie crust, and you want to throw something hearty and healthy together quickly.

 

I apologize for not having a picture of the entire product, but Laela was yanking on my pant leg telling me that she was "STARVING", so chicken pot pie with a hunk cut out is what you get.

 

Easy Chicken Pot Pie (mostly from scratch!)

 

You'll need:

• 1 sheet of puff pastry
• 2 chicken breasts (can be leftover from roasted chicken- that's what I used)
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 potatoes, chopped
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1Tb butter
• 1Tb flour
• 1 cup chicken broth/stock
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 sprig thyme
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 425-degrees Fahrenheit.
• Heat a large skillet to medium heat.  Add a few glugs of olive oil.
• Place the onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes in the pan to cook for about ten minutes.  Stir occasionally.
• While the vegetables are cooking, heat a medium saucepan to medium-high heat.
• Add the butter and flour.  Whisk until they are well combined.  Do not allow it to brown. 
• Pour the chicken stock/broth into the pan with the butter/flour mixture.  Whisk until it thickens to an almost gravy consistency.
• Mix in the rosemary (I cut my rosemary with scissors to make it nice and easily diced) and thyme leaves.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
• If using raw chicken, cut it into cubes.  Put it in the pastry dish.
• Add the cooked vegetables, frozen peas, and the chicken stock/broth mixture to the pastry pan.  Gently stir the ingredients together.  They'll meld together well while they bake, so don't go overboard trying to mix everything together.
• Gently unroll the puff pastry over the pastry dish (I usually use a pie pan, but you can use anything you like- corning ware is great for this).  Gently pinch the sides so that they adhere to the dish.  If you have any leftover dough, hand it over to your little one to make fun shapes, and then top the pastry with the shapes.
• If you want to it to have a rich golden texture, use a pastry brush to paint the pastry with an egg wash (1 egg that's been beaten with 3 tablespoons of water).
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• Enjoy!

Meatloaf Burgers, Lentils, and Chunky Tomatoes and Bean Pasta Sauce

Life is a bit difficult right now. I've had to completely adjust our program in so many ways that I feel as if my head is spinning. Kyle is working double shifts to get acclimated to his new role. Laela is fine while we're out, but is very, very clingy when we're home. She cries every night for her Daddy. She hugs her dinosaur book and says "Daddy dinosaurs!!"


As for me, I'm just trying to keep things together. Kyle has always traveled a lot, but we always made up for it with lots of phone time, writing letters, and making sure to spend a lot of time together when he gets home. We've always tried to cram every moment of family time that we can, much in the same way that you want to sop up the gravy of a really good roast. You want to savor it, and make it last as long as possible.

Because we need this time, I've had to strive for a balance with things that I'd never really had to worry about before. I'm trying to make new friends for Laela and I, but I also have to make sure to keep the two hours a morning that Kyle's available this week, and possibly next week, free. I wasn't prepared for Laela to beg for Dada to get out of bed, but then for her to ignore him. I wasn't prepared for the tears when he left this morning. It's a lot.

Sad toddler aside- which is generally only at bedtime and morning time when Kyle leaves, things are going okay. I was really nervous about having to switch from dinner being the main sit down family meal.  Now it's all about breakfast/brunch before Kyle goes to work.

I've also had to readjust our meals in that I have to make dinner for the next day the night before. So all of the meals that I'm making from now on, with the exception of most breakfasts, are easy to freeze, and taste just as good microwaved. Just because Kyle's not eating dinner with Laela and I anymore, doesn't mean he shouldn't have a tasty, healthy, energizing meal. My focus right now is making sure that we all stay healthy.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing recipes that are easy to freeze, and will taste great reheated.
Here is a recipe for three things that can be frozen and reheated, and will please everyone in your house.

Meatball burgers

You'll need:

• 1 lb ground chuck (I prefer grass fed when possible)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 2 diced sprigs parsley (stems too)
• Salt and Pepper
• Good squirt of ketchup
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• olive oil

Instructions:

• Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl.  If your mixture feels too wet, add a bit more breadcrumbs.
• Form patties out of the mixture.
• Heat a skillet to medium heat.  If you are using grass-fed beef, keep an eye on your skillet.  If it gets too hot, it will cook faster than regular beef. 
• Drizzle some olive oil in the pan. 
• Cook each burger for 3-6 minutes per side, depending on how well done you like them.  If you plan to freeze them, it doesn't hurt to cook them a little under what you normally prefer so that when you reheat them, they don't dry out.
• To keep them from drying out when reheating, drizzle some water or broth on the burger when you reheat it.

Lentils

You'll need:

• 1/2lb lentils
• 1 cup pasta sauce
• 1 chopped carrot
• 1 chopped celery
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 2 chopped garlic cloves
• Water
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive oil

Instructions:

• Heat a large sauce pan to medium heat.
• Drizzle a bit of olive oil in the pan.
• Add the garlic, carrot, onion  and celery.
• Cook for five minutes.
• Add the lentils, bay leaf, and pasta sauce.
• Cover the lentils with about a 1/2 inch of water.
• Bring to a boil.
• Lower to medium low heat.
• Cook for about 20 minutes.
• Add salt and pepper as needed.

Chunky Tomato and Beans Pasta Sauce

You'll need:

• 1 cup pasta sauce (I use homemade, but you can use jarred if you want.)
• (1) 8oz can of diced tomatoes
• (3) cloves garlic, chopped
• (1) 8oz can cannellini beans
• (1) oz can red kidney beans
• Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

• Heat a large saucepan to medium-low heat.
• Mix all of the ingredients in the pan.
• Cook for ten minutes.

This is one of those meals that each compontent is delicious alone, but is also great mixed together.  Yesterday, I defrosted some of the lentils and pasta sauce and cooked it with some whole grain pasta.

Put down the premade frozen meals, and give some of the meals I make over the next few weeks, and give them a try.  I promise, you won't be disappointed!

Beef and Ale Stew

Oh Spring, supposedly you're here, and when I look outside, it really looks like it!  Then I go outside.  And have to scurry in for my coat.  And scarf.  And normal shoes.  Ugh.  I was so looking forward to rocking some flipflops and being able to play outside for longer than 20 minutes! 

Alas, nature is not on my side.  The one benefit is that we can still rock out some stew!  (We live in one of those houses where certain foods are considered seasonal.  Kyle refuses to allow for hamburgers in Winter or lasagna and stew in Spring.  Personally, I could eat anything anytime, but I've got to respect his quirks.  And go out for hamburgers when I want one in Winter!)

We've visited a recipe similar to this before when I shared my beef beerguinon recipe, but this one has a lot less steps and takes some seriously minimal effort.  I used one of my favorite chefs, Jamie Oliver, for this one (thank you Food Revolution!), and added my own little twist.

Beef and Ale Stew
serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 2 stalks celery
• 2 medium onions
• 2 carrots
• olive oil
• 1 heaped tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 x 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes (or if you don't like chunky tomatoes, tomato puree)
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 cups brown ale, Guinness or stout (I used Terrapin Brown IPA)
• 3 fresh or dried bay leaves
• optional:  1 cup diced tomatoes, 2 cups peas, 4 medium potatoes- red or yukon gold.

Instructions:

• If using the oven to cook your stew, preheat it to 350-degrees
• Trim the ends off your celery and roughly chop the stalks
• Peel and roughly chop the onions
• Peel the carrots (I was lazy and didn't do this), slice lengthways, and roughly chop
• Put a Dutch oven on a medium heat
• Put all the vegetables and your bay leaves into the pan with 2 lugs of olive oil and fry for 10 minutes
• Add your meat and flour
• Pour in the booze and canned tomatoes/puree
• Give it a good stir, then season with a teaspoon of sea salt (less if using table salt) and a few grinds of pepper
• Bring to a boil, put the lid on, and either simmer slowly on your cooktop or cook in an oven for three hours.
• Remove the lid for the final hour of simmering/cooking and add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry
• When done, your meat should be tender and delicious
• Remove bay leaves before serving and taste to see if it needs more salt and pepper.

Here's where I deviated from Jamie...

I cooked some quartered potatoes in olive oil, garlic and onion powder and stirred them in with the stew when there was an hour of cooking left.

Since Kyle hates chunky tomatoes, I put them at the bottom of Laela and my bowls so we'd have them, and just poured the stew on top.

I also added some peas to the bottom of Laela and my stew, because well, I always like something green, and I had a hankering for peas.

This meal is delicious, and it just gets better with each passing day!

Lentil Soup with a Dash of Love

Whenever I hear someone mention lentil soup, I think of two things- the worst soup I've ever had, and the best soup I've ever had.  One of the first times I had it, I swear it was cooked in water with salt and pepper.  It had NO love in it whatsoever.  The first time I remember really remember LOVING it was this older Greek woman's soup that was garnished with red peppers and had a faint taste of red vinegar.  I've tried my damnedest to make her recipe, and I've just never been able to figure out what she did to make it so amazing.

This go around, I asked my good friend, Dawn, to give me some tips on how she makes her soup so yummy.  Her family makes "lucky lentil soup" that is made for the first day of the New Year, and if I'm guessing correctly, whomever receives the bay leaf is to have good luck that year.  (I grew up with that same tradition, except the bay leaves were in spaghetti sauce..but that's a post for another day.)

Anyway, Dawn recommended some pureed celery and carrots (Can you say yum?  And sneaking in veggies!  I'm in!)  She also recommended sun-dried tomatoes, which sounds super awesome, but I didn't have any on hand, so I just had to improvise with a fresh tomato.

Here's my twist on lentil soup..

Ingredients:

• (1/2 lb) Dried lentils
•  (3) Carrots
• (1) Celery stalk
• (1) Medium Tomato
• (2) Boullion cubes (I used vegetable, but I'm sure chicken or beef would be good too)
• (4) Cups water
• (2) Tb Crushed garlic
• (1) Tb Onion powder
• (1) Bay leaf
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Measure four cups of water and pour it into a medium soup pot.
• Chop the celery and carrots.  (I used the celery leaves as well.) 
• Add the celery and carrots to the boiling water.
• Boil for ten minutes.
• While the veggies are boiling, slice up the tomato.
• Sprinkle some olive oil in a medium-high skillet.  Salt and pepper both sides of the tomato and place each slice in the skillet.  Lower the heat to medium heat.  Cook for two or three minutes per side.
• DO NOT DISCARD THE VEGETABLE WATER.
• Use a slotted spoon to take out the vegetables.
• Put the carrots, tomato and celery in a food processor or blender and puree.
• Rinse the lentils.
• Pour the rinsed lentils into the vegetable water.
• Add the pureed vegetables.
• Add the crushed garlic and onion powder (if you want to use fresh onions, just sautee them and puree them.  I used onion powder because I didn't have onions on hand.)
• Add the boullion cubes.
• Bring to a boil.  Once you have brought the soup to a boil, lower it to a simmer and place a lid on the pot.
• Cook for 20 minutes.  (This is one of those dishes that tastes better the longer you cook it.  I let mine simmer on low heat after the twenty minutes were up for an extra hour, for a total time of 80 minutes.  The rule of thumb with sauces and soups (and food in general, really) is that if you put a little love in it, it'll taste like it.  So if you have the time, definitely take it.  If not, it'll still be a pretty darn delicious soup!

Oh, and as you can see from this picture, Laela really loved this soup!!

I know that it seems like there are a lot of steps in this dish, and it may not be the simplest recipe I've posted...but it really isn't too difficult, and it's definately worth the effort!

*This soup will freeze for 6 months in a normal home freezer, and 1 year in a deep freeze.