Sunday, July 10, 2016

Unexpected Guest

Friday night, my daughter texted that she was bringing a friend home for dinner.  She caught me right about the time I had decided that I was serving leftovers, and was too tired to stop by the store.  OK, then.  Plan a recipe from scratch and memory.

Chicken Pot Pie.  I had randomly picked up some farm fresh strawberries.  Strawberry Shortcake.  It turned out my store had some fresh corn on the cob, too.  I had a plan.

My recipe for chicken pot pie came from a book called, Cooking for Dummies.  One of the best books that I ever got.  Everything is delicious, but one of the key things that it taught me was that if you don't have something or don't like a recipe, just change it.  It's a good rule.  Change your own recipes.

Chicken pot pie is absolutely delicious, but takes too much time.  It also makes leftovers.  Always worth it.  Basically you are starting with chicken soup.  Saute onions.  Lightly brown chicken.  Add chicken broth and water to cover.  I like to get my vegetables, but hide them too.  Slice the carrots super thin, and add a peeled and sliced potatoes.  Add celery, but keep it big because you'll remove it later.  When everything is nicely cooked, you want to drain it over a pot to save that wonderful stock.

Chicken and vegetables go in a casserole dish.  In the same pan, it's time to make a sauce.  Some butter and flour.  Then add back about two cups reserved liquid and two cups cream.  Yum.

Top it all off with some homemade biscuit dough.  There's lots of options there, but Bisquick is a good fall back.

For a night, when I didn't want to cook I was pretty happy.  The fridge became inaccessible.

Oh, and for the picky eating kids- just give them some chicken after it's cooked but before you dice it into the casserole mix.  They might even eat the carrots.

I used "rainbow" carrots this time.  They have better flavor, but some of the dark carrots really look very unappealing with leftovers.  Little dark blobs in my food.  Sigh.  I'll have to think about that next time.