Saturday, August 28, 2010

Comfort foods:
Chicken Pot Pie is a wonderful thing. It is one of the ultimate comfort foods in my mind. There's always baked mac and cheese, meatloaf, etc. But I really like a good homemade chicken pot pie. I found this recipe called All Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pies. It is so delicious. I've only made it once but it made so much I froze the left over filling and am making a second one today out of the leftovers. It's not quite as full as it should be, but it will hopefully work just fine.

It the absolute best pastry crust I could ever make. It can still be used even for regular pies if you remove the pepper.
The recipe is found in this book. However, we're going to cheat and just post it here!

All-Sold Out Chicken Pot Pies

Yield: 6 servings

Filling:

  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 purchased cooked rotisserie chicken or 1 whole stewed chicken, cooled
  • 8 ounces fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces (optional)
  • 1 (8-ounce) package frozen peas (optional)

Sauce:

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (optional)
  • Dash of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco
  • Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Crust:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 10 ounces chilled cream cheese
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
  • 1 large egg

To Make The Filling: Melt the butter in a large sauté pan set over medium heat. Add the onion and potato; sauté for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, bell pepper, and mushrooms and sauté about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the crushed red pepper and add salt and pepper to taste.

While the vegetables are sautéing, skin the chicken, pull the meat off the bones, and shred the meat or cut into bite-size pieces. Place the green beans in a microwave-safe bowl and add enough water to cover. Cover the dish and microwave on high power about 10 minutes, until the beans are tender. Drain thoroughly. Stir the beans, peas, and chicken into the vegetable mixture. Set the filling aside.

To Make The Sauce: Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the chicken stock and cook the sauce over medium heat until it thickens to the consistency of a cream soup. Add the cream, hot pepper sauce, and salt and white pepper to taste. Pour the cream sauce over the chicken filling and stir to combine. Fill individual 1 1/4-cup capacity oven-safe bowls three-quarters of the way to the top with the creamed chicken filling.

To Make The Crust: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cut the butter into 16 pieces. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse the butter and flour until crumbly. Add the cream cheese, salt, and white pepper. Continue pulsing just until the dough forms a ball.

Set the dough on a flat surface dusted with flour. Use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness. Measure the diameter of the pot pie bowls–mine are about 4 inches across–and cut out dough rounds that are 1 1/2 inches larger in diameter. Whisk the egg in a small bowl. Lay the dough rounds on top of the pot pies, making sure the dough hangs evenly over each bowl. Brush the dough lightly with the beaten egg. Bake the pies for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Variation: Pot pies lend themselves to all manner of vegetable additions, such as diced carrots, fresh corn kernels, diced turnips, sliced celery, cut-up asparagus spears, or sliced wild mushrooms. Just add them to the sauté mix and enjoy.



The key that I've found with the crust is to make sure it's nice and chilled before rolling it out. Less flour will be needed to get it to not stick to the counter.




Sadly it didn't come out totally picture perfect. The crust tried to separate from itself. I chose the wrong kind of pie dish, the kind that has handles on it. This is not a mistake that I will repeat! It is quite a bit of work, but I promise it is totally worth it!

Chicken Wings

Chicken wings is one of my top foods. I make them all the time because they are just so darn delicious. I used to deep fry them but that's too much work, it makes the whole house smell like fried chicken for a week, and it pretty unhealthy. Now, I just bake them because that's quite the easy alternative. If I had a grill, that's probably how I'd do it, but as I don't, I don't.

If you've ever been to Winger's then you know about their Amazing Sauce. Supposedly their sauce is a secret recipe but I found a way around that. All it is is equal parts brown sugar and Frank's Red Hot Sauce. Throw those in a pot and you're good to go! I almost always have the stuff on hand nowadays because it is very delicious. Just make sure you don't get distracted and let it boil for 20 minutes like I did today. It came out very gelatonous and burned tasting and was disgusting. I had to chuck it and start over.


The wings bake in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes on each side. I like to toss them in some flour with garlic salt and whatever spices I feel like before baking, that way the sauce has something to hold on to. I bake them on a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet so that the grease will drip down. Once all done cooking, just throw some of the amazing sauce on it and some ranch on your plate for dipping!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Grilled Cheese for Adults Only

I really like American cheese. I think it must be my inner child but I actually like it. Whenever I go to Subway I get a ham sub with American cheese on it. Not too long ago I rediscovered my love for grilled cheese sandwiches. It had probably been a year since I'd had one but they're fantastic and I always use American cheese.

Last week I decided to make a more grown up variation of the grilled ham and cheese standard. We were getting ready to move and didn't have much money so we were just living off of what was left in our fridge and freezer. I had bread, butter, American cheese and salmon so I combined them and made a grilled salmon and cheese sandwich.

I have problems when it comes to cooking fish. I always over cook it in the and it comes out a bit dry. You gotta watch the stuff like a hawk because it'll get overdone in that extra 2 minutes you put it back in the oven for before it flakes off the skin as it should.

Normally when I cook salmon, I just put a little butter or olive oil on the top with some garlic salt. It usually is a little bit more bland than I'd like it to be so tonight I think I'll try it with some of my favorite: balsamic vinegar.

So I ended up making one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches you could ever have. I think the key when trying to invent something to eat is to think of the kinds of things you already go well together. I know salmon and balsamic vinegar is good. I know salmon and cream cheese is good. I know montery jack is always good. I know garlic is good with just about anything. So I just combined all of the above and got what Steven and I have named the Ben Lomand Salmon Melt: