Chicken Pot Pie

I am so sorry. My friends, I have been away for quite some time, but I think I have a good reason...I am pregnant. Now that in and of itself should not have kept me offline, however, I did have very strong morning sickness. I didn't  have to go to the doctor because of it, but I could not stand to be in the kitchen. Now that I'm out of my first trimester, I'm hungry and can actually enjoy, not just deal with the smell of onions.
We also moved. My husband and I are at a temporary station in Oklahoma for about a year. So that stole about three weeks from leaving to finding a new house and then attempting to unpack. It was quite a challenge. We now have a smaller kitchen, but it is still just as functional. And considering I'm about to not want to be on my feet as much, smaller may be better.

I haven't been very brave in the way of trying new things recently. I've been sticking to mine and my husband's favorites. But I recently had a craving for chicken pot pie. I almost chickened out and bought a frozen one, but then I decided that I just had to try it from scratch. I was elated when I found this recipe.
The only thing I would change is to add more salt and cook the veggies a little longer.

Ingredients:

2 pie crusts - unbaked (I used Pillsbury ready to bake)
1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced (1/4 inch thick)
2 stalks celery, sliced 1/4 inch thick
4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon ground dried thyme
3 Tablespoons dry sherry
1/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
3 Tablespoons minced parsley (fresh)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F, place oven rack in middle position.
2. Place chicken and broth in a stock pot over medium heat. Cover, bring to a simmer and simmer until the chicken is done.
3. Transfer the chicken to a large bowl; reserve the broth in a separate cup or small bowl.
4. Place oil in the stock pot, turn heat to medium high.
5. Add the carrots, onion and celery. Sauté until just tender (the recipe originally said 5 min, but I would do 10-15 min.). Season to taste with salt and pepper. (I would add a few teaspoons or even a tablespoon of salt. Pepper is tricky because the flavor increases with time and heat).
6. Shred the chicken meat into bit-sized pieces, then place the vegetables into the bowl with the chicken and set aside.
7. Heat the butter in the now empty stock pot over medium heat. Once melted, add the flour and cook 1 minute.
8. Whisk in the chicken broth, milk and thyme. Bring to a simmer, continuing to simmer until sauce thickens (about 1 min.). Season with salt and pepper, stir in the sherry.
9. Pour the sauce over the chicken-vegetables mixture, stir well. Stir in the peas and parsley.
10. Line a 9x13 inch pan with one of the pie crusts. If using ready to bake pie crusts, roll the dough to fit the pan. (My 9x13 pan was occupied by leftover lasagna, so I used a 3 qt casserole dish which worked perfectly).
11. Pour the chicken mixture into the pan and top with second crust.
12. Bake in preheated oven until pie crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly, about 30 minutes.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! With summer in full swing, this is a must have for dessert. So I made my own. I am not sure if it's Spanish or not, but it was sure fantastic, and I didn't use an ice cream maker!

Gazpacho

I seem to have been on a soup kick of late. What better way to continue that as the mercury rises than by having cold soup for International night as a pre-course to my paella. Like the paella I looked at several different recipes before deciding on one to use, and even then I completely disregarded some parts of it and added other things. The thing that will make the biggest single difference in my opinion is the ripeness of the tomatoes. Mine were from the farmer's market and were so fresh and flavorful. Find some for yourself and try this recipe. It's great!

Chicken and Shrimp Paella

I was inspired by my father-in-law's trip to Spain and so I decided that this month's international night had to also be Spain. With that in mind, the only thing I really thought was appropriate as a main dish was paella (pronounced pie-eh-ya for those who didn't take Spanish in school). It seemed a little complicated and complex, but in the end, it was pretty simple and delicious. The husband even wants me to make it again!

Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake

What do you do if you find yourself living in the South during the summer with local blueberry growers in your midst? You buy blueberries!And then you use them in whatever you want. You can add them to salad, sangria, pancakes, make a fruit salad or just eat them straight. I didn't know what to do, but I was thinking breakfast. I finally settled on a blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake, to which my husband agreed.

I searched through a lot of recipes and finally decided to half this one from the Taste of Home Kitchen. It was one of the shows I watched as I lay on my couch in pain after sinus surgery. It's where I heard of the tunnel of fudge cake. So I had confidence in the source, you might say. I'm glad I did, because this started off a anniversary weekend on a sweet note.

Hawaiin Mahi Mahi

One of the best things about living close to the coast is the ability to get fresh fish. We have a local seafood stand that drives the 1.5 hours on the weekend with the stuff they caught this week. There is nothing better than a wonderfully-cooked  piece of fresh fish (in my humble opinion). When I saw they had Mahi Mahi, I had to stop and get some.

I wasn't planning on sharing this, but after trying an interesting recipe, I was so pleased with the result, I had to post it.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

When you have an intense craving for chocolate, you really have to fulfill it. Well, at least I do. Ignoring it or putting it aside never really works out for. Now granted, I end up paying for it when I go to the gym next. And it is handy that I have a husband whose metabolism hasn't caught up with him yet, so he just eats endlessly, limiting the amount of food I eat.

But last Thursday, all I could do was look up recipes until I found "the one." Then I had to make these.

Farmer's Market

On Thursday, my neighbor and I made the one-hour trip to Raleigh to visit the 7-days-a-week, year-round farmer's market. Please don't misunderstand. I've been to many farmer's markets and road-side stands. I know how good that kind of produce is. I picked my own strawberries twice this strawberry season (and woefully forgot to take photos). But this was a veritable cornucopia of fresh, delicious produce and other fantastic things that I wish were closer. I tried the best tomatoes I have ever had, not to mention the best blueberries and peaches. All will be eaten this weekend and posted soon.

If you have not been to a good farmer's market (I was not really given the privilege until moving to the Carolinas where there are things other than ranches) and one is close, go. It will blow your mind. Peppers that smelled like a pepper without cutting into it. Fresh flowers, organic soap... But I digress. I leave you with these beautiful photos, which I did not edit, in hopes that they will lure you to a farmer's market in your area soon!

Roasted Peppers

As I start to learn some basic, simple parts of recipes, I feel the need to share them. I mean, now that I know how, roasting a pepper seems more of an inconvenience to be time managed than an intimidating proposition.
So I think I am going to start a new section of my recipes page for basics, such as roasting peppers or garlic, the difference between chopping and dicing, things like that. None of these things is hard, but I remember how daunting these tasks seemed to me, and if I can help someone else cook, then I think l have accomplished.
There is not much better than a home-cooked, healthy meal shared by the whole family. Besides, oh faithful readers, when you impress your dinner guests with your homemade roasted red peppers in your chicken roulade, feel proud. Few people can really cook from scratch anymore. So I want to help. If I can do it, anyone can. Anyway, on to roasted peppers.



Lots of things call for roasted peppers, usually red ones because of their beautiful color. The only difference between red, orange and green peppers is the amount of time they are allowed to sit on the stem and ripen. There are some species of bell peppers that are yellow without going through a green phase, but they are less common.
So, because I did not want to spend three times as much for practically the same pepper, I use green peppers by and large. Roasting them is a breeze, a warm one, but a breeze none the less.

Lentil Soup

We had Thanksgiving with our neighbors, and while channeling our inner Martha Stewart, we decorated candles with different kinds of beans using a double-sided tape. I must admit, i usually do not cook with beans and I picked these beans for their aesthetics more than their possible culinary uses. I was fortunate to have my leftover beans be something I could and was excited about using.

While i have never had Lentil Soup before, I found a recipe that sounded good and was well reviewed on epicurious.com and decided to make it. All I can say is yum!

Butternut Squash Soup

My neighbor made me soup last fall, and it was the first time I had and absolutely loved a homemade soup. What can I say, she's a maven in he kitchen. It probably doesn't hurt that she's an Army brat who spent her last 8 years with her (still!) active duty father in Germany. Note the slight hint of jealousy. But this soup, even in the summer heat, is delicious! I highly recommend it if you are looking for something a little different from the norm. Can I say that she got the recipe in a book that was a gift at a bridal shower? It contained recipes from all the women in her family. How sweet and special! So now we are sharing a Smith family recipe (yes that's there real last name, and no I don't think it will get me in trouble).

Tunnel of Fudge Cake - No nuts

I had surgery on my sinuses in 2009. Apparently I was allergic to everything native to our beautiful North Carolina. Now my enlarged sinus cavity can handle the pollen onslaught that happens every spring. My mother flew out and picked me up after surgery and handled my angry and drugged rants. Being in pain and having to wait 2 hours for my pain meds with cotton shoved up my nose is not the way I wish anyone to spend their weekend. She was so sweet.
But she has a job and other children still at home who need her. So when she left, I was at home laying on the couch watching PBS. America's test kitchen came on. It was awesome. They showed a cake called Tunnel of Fudge cake. It's an ooey gooey fudge bundt cake. It had one flaw ... nuts.
Nuts are typically used to help baked goods retain their moisture. I don't know how that works, but I knew that removing the nuts would probably lead to a cake that was just not quite done in the middle instead of tunnel of fudge-y.
Fast forward a year and a half and I found a recipe for a nut-less recipe! Angels sang and the heavans rejoiced, or at least I did. So, I made it.

homemade pasta

When I was in college and my husband was working in Manhattan as a bar tender, he told me something I never forgot. "Once you make your own pasta, you will always feel cheated when you buy it at the store because it is so simple." I wanted to believe him, but I was very skeptical. Well, we got a pasta maker for Christmas and finally my procrastinating self decided to try it out. We made pasta and ravioli. Both were delicious!

Pasta Flora

It was international night again last month. We decided to go greek! OOpah! The main entre was absolutely terrible, though my friends were kind enough to eat it. But the star of the show was the dessert - Pasta Flora. It's essentially and cherry pie, greek-style. I found the recipe here and I have to say, it was pretty easy and pretty tasty!

Carne Asada

Comfort food to me means a lot of things. There are several things from my time spent in South Carolina that I just love, like boiled peanuts and mac and cheese. But I also embrace chips and queso and bean and cheese burritos. So delicious! My husband loves carne asada. So we made some fantastic yummyness!

Quiche

I fell in love with quiche in college. It was a food that my lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarian friends and I could eat together. Best of all, we could buy it at the local deli pre-made and all we had to do was heat it up. It was fabulous. Fast forward a few years and when my husband asked me if I wanted to make a quiche I instantly said, "Yes!" Of course, I had no idea how. But it wasn't hard and the longest part is letting it cook for an hour. So I felt like I needed to share this with you. It's so yummy!

Chicken Piccatta

Here in sunny North Carolina, we get a syndicated cooking show on the local news called Cooking At Home. Mr. Dan Eaton had a recipe that honestly looked delicious, and I had to try it - Turkey Picatta. I have nothing against turkey, but chicken is much more available, so I made the chicken version, and even my husband complimented it.

Cinnamon Buns

There's really not much better than ooey, gooey cinnamon roles. The kind that are warm, sticky and sweet, then they give you a huge sugar rush. They are also my husband's favorite breakfast food, and I can't blame him. I've tried to sneak the pre-made cinnamon rolls in our shopping cart for years, and he would always say, "They are so much better from scratch that I can't justify buying these." I would sadly put them back and mutter something about not being enough time in the morning to make them.


Then I got an intense craving to make them. And I mean, intense. So, I researched and found many possible recipes. They all looked yummy, but they all took a long time. And then I found one that said it only took 1.25 hours. It looked decent, but what kept my interest is the reviews. With more than 300 reviews, the recipe had a five-star rating. Crazy! So I had to try it.

Irish Soda Bread

The theme International Night in March was, of course, Irish. My neighbor made a Shepherd's pie, we had Irish coffee and Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's-flavored icing. It was phenomenal. I made Irish Soda bread. Sadly, in my, uh excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product. But before we began imbibing, I had the where-with-all to take photos pre-oven. So here it is, the making of the Irish Soda Bread.

Roasted Chicken

One of the staples my husband makes is roasted chicken. It sounded terribly daunting at first, not to mention time consuming. As I have learned, it is neither. All you really need is a good pan. So lets start with that and work our way though to some delicious dinner.

Wedding Cake

My apologies to my faithful readers (all two of you). There have been several circumstances which have prevented me from posting as often as I would like. I have been cooking, well, some, but not posting. However, barring another family emergency, I plan to be taking it easier from work and cooking and posting more. Especially as the summer approaches - my favorite season. I'm already planning a Greek meal for International dinner. And for Easter, a yummy (fingers crossed) strawberry cake (or cupcakes). 

But first, to one of the main thing that held up my time for a week - a wedding cake. I hated it so much by the time it was over, that my husband only took  one photo on his phone. It was nice and pretty, but was far more difficult than I anticipated. It was a simply two-layered, three-tiered cake. Nothing fancy. Devil's Food and buttercream with fondant. But it just plagued me it seemed. But the bride enjoyed it, and that is all that mattered. Now, we are moving on to yummier, more common things. A photo will come, technology allowing.

Mini Vanilla Scones

While my wonderful husband was deployed, I began to really start baking. It gave me something to pass the time, both the baking and then the eating. It also gave me something to share with others since I was quite lonely. I shared these scones with an editor I had while she was pregnant, and she half asked me to quit my job and open a bakery. While it was highly impractical, it was very flattering. These aren't hard to make, but they do require about an hour of time, so they can't be made on the fly like pancakes ... but they are SO worth it.

Carrot Cake

I have never been very fond of carrot cake. I mean, it is cake. It's not supposed to have vegetables in it. But, when the father-in-law comes to visit, you make something that he will like, not you. You can bake for yourself any old time. So at my husband's behest, I made a delicious carrot cake. It apparently was so good, I didn't even have a chance to take a photo of it whole. :)

Crab Rangoon

Crab Rangoons are in no way authentically Chinese. They were created, like fortune cookies, by Chinese immigrants in the U.S. They are however, incredibly delicious and I have been craving them for some time. I also decided to make them because I just wasn't sure if the other two recipes would fill two hungry Army men.

Eggdrop Soup

I wanted an appetizer of sorts for our International Dinner. You know, fancy it up a little. I have always like eggdrop soup and figured that if I can make, I won't have to buy it.

International Dinner Night

My neighbors and I love to eat. I should say, we love to eat good food, and we all love trying new things (I love my neighbors). We also live about 30 minutes from anything other than fast food. I was listening to The Splendid Table and heard about a lady who had started a dinner club that met and made international food. They rotated the cooking and changed up the country of the food. They tried to make it as authentic as possible. I talked to our lovely neighbors, and we decided to have our own.

Buttercream

For the buttercream, I just made a standard half batch. I took three Wilton's Cooking Classes and basically followed there recipe. 

Devil's Food Cake

Often bakers, even professional ones, will use box cake mixes. I know, que gasp. But it's true. I have talked with several professional bakers and they use box mixes with extenders. The extenders usually give the "fun" flavors, like caramel or mocha. Not that this isn't a perfectly legitimate way of baking a cake, I was just tired of eating cake that has preservatives and chemicals in it. So I a made cake from scratch. I was reading about making faux-hostess cupcakes and found this recipe from Martha Stewart.

What happened was pure deliciousness!

Meatloaf

 My mother never made meatloaf. It just wasn't something she cooked. We had it maybe once or twice growing up when my stepfather made it. I don't remember if I liked it or not, but I know I enjoy it now. We probably have once a month or so, or whenever we feel lazy and don't want to go to the grocery store. Why does meatloaf get such a bad rap? It can be delicious, healthy, fun and a great way to help clean out your pantry. It was also voted as the #7 favorite dish in the U.S. in 2007, according to Good Housekeeping.

Chocolate Mousse

For my birthday, I didn't want a cake. We often have cupcakes or cake around, so I wanted some chocolate mousse. So DH used the book from his one baking class in school, Baking and Pastry, as a recipe for my mouse. It was delicious!

Spaghetti Squash

So this is half of a wonderful thing, a spaghetti squash. I decided to post this when my neighbor told me she had never heard of one. I must admit, my husband introduced them to me this winter. It was love with one bite. And they are super easy to prepare.
Spaghetti squash look like a more oblong melon. To cook them, it's super easy to roast it. Stay with me, when my husband first said, "Can you roast chicken for dinner?" I freaked out. I thought that it would be an intense preparation that could not be easy or quick. I was wrong. This is both easy and quick (as it is with chicken as well).

Oyster Festival

When you think of Valentine's Day you think of foods like chocolate covered strawberries and oysters - aphrodisiacs. Foods that are supposed to stimulate sex drive and stuff like that. This weekend I had about as much of that as I could take. My husband took me to the Stumpy Point Oyster Festival.

This was their 26th go round, and the church that puts it on does a great job. It's all you can eat steamed or fried oysters plus sides and fried fish from 12-5 at the community center. All that for $25. Pretty sweet deal.

Cole Slaw

It is a terrible thing to think of serving pulled pork without also serving cole slaw.  You can't have one without the other. Sometimes it's fun to put them on the same bun. So, we made the slaw from scratch. I found the recipe at Seasonal Chef.

Pulled Pork

Who doesn't love an excuse to be lazy and eat for hours on a Sunday? Seriously? We decided that we would get together with our neighbors to watch grown men run into each other with pads on. She made potato soup and a 7 layer dip and I made pulled pork. I was tickled to see pulled pork as a top 10 Super Bowl food on Savour Fare.

I'm originally from South Carolina, so pork barbecue is a fond childhood memory. Sadly, the barbecue in this state is different enough that I don't really care for it. So I'm trying to recreate childhood goodness is a pulled pork sandwhich.

Whoopie Pies

I must admit I get a Williams - Sonoma magazine in the mail, and it sits on my coffee table for me to look at and drool over. The most recent one had whoopie pies. It looked so yummy that I decided I would make them. After scouring the Internet, I found a recipe that my husband agreed sounded pretty good.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

It has been a long time since I was on here, and I have decided to embrace the kitchen and catalog more of what I do anyway for my own mental storage. This way I can remember when I made what and how and so on. I'm going to work on my camera shots too. Try to breath some life into this blog and make it more interesting.
Without further ado, the best chocolate chip cookies ever, well at least according to my husband.
This recipe is adapted from a Nestle cookbook, "Best-Loved Cookies." I tried for years (literally) to make a cookie better than my husband (before we were married). His recipe called for pudding and I never felt right putting pudding in a cookie recipe. But the key for him was he sugar ratio. You need a 3:1 ratio of brown sugar to white.
Armed with this knowledge I went out to conquer. I found this recipe under the "Light Delights" section of the cookbook, but after I reworked it, there is nothing light about it.