What's Cooking: Chicken Pot Pie

To me the best part of a pot pie is the crust. I love pot pies and remember that being one of my favorite meals to whip up as a kid. How hard was it to pop one in the oven? I was young, naive and without a ton of kids at the time.

I still like pot pies, but I prefer making mine from scratch. It is healthier without all the sodium of the convenient, store-bought one serving pot pie. I forgo the crust to prevent fights because family dinner time is supposed to be a good thing, a time for bonding. Instead of crusts, I whip up a batch or two or three of homemade biscuits. While those are baking I make the pot pie filling.

Okay, I did say healthier but I must admit the batch I made this week might have had less sodium than a store bought version, but oh, the yummy fat was there. Shame I know, but it was really good. I used butter (unsalted and homemade) and cream in place of evaporated milk. It was what I had on hand. Darn!

I like making this recipe when I have leftover turkey or chicken. It was turkey this time. So I fudged a bit, it's Turkey Pot Pie that's cooking. A bag of frozen mixed veggies is easy to add. The hardest part of the recipe is cutting up the celery and onions.

What is so nice is that this recipe is freezer friendly. You can whip up a double batch and freeze half for a later time. You can freeze the biscuits too but I always run out of biscuits before I can ever do that.


Below is the recipe ... take note that this is a versatile recipe. You can make it healthier by using skim evaporated milk. I have and it still tastes yummy. The only difference is being able to fit in your jeans in the morning. There are other ways to make it healthier like using fat free chicken broth. You can adjust the vegetables by using what you have on hand or fresh even. I find using frozen mixed veggies saves prep time. The picky eaters just pick out which ones they don't like. There is no pleasing everyone in this house unless it is meatloaf for dinner.

Chicken/Turkey Pot Pie

(makes 6 servings or 2 pies)

1 cup onions, chopped

1 cup celery, choppped

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup evaporated milk

4 cups chicken, cooked and chopped

2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed

1-1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Saute onions and celery in butter in a large skillet over medium heat until tender. Add flour and stir until smooth. Cook one minute, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth and evaporated milk. Cook, stirring constantly until thickened and bubbly. Stir in chicken, vegetables, salt and pepper. Heat through.

To Serve: Serve immediately hot over biscuits.

To Freeze: Let filling cool. Divide in half and freeze in one gallon freezer bags.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

I found this recipe on the 30 Day Gourmet site. On the site, they have adjusted the amount of ingredients for larger or multiple batches if making all at once. You can check out the Loaded Baked Potato Soup recipe here. I have both made the recipe to serve immediately and to freeze for a later meal. It is a good way to use up any leftover baked potatoes from a previous meal. It also can be adjusted to make a lighter version by using lighter or fat-free, low sodium, etc. versions of the ingredients.

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS
4 large baking potatoes
10 tablespoons butter or margarine
2/3 cup flour
6 cups milk
1-1/2 cups cheddar cheese
1-1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon balck pepper
8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
8 ounces sour cream

ON HAND:
2-3 green onion sliced
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
3-4 slices cooked bacon, cooked and crumbled

DIRECTIONS
Scrub potatoes and wrap each one in aluminum foil. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 60-90 minutes, or until they’re soft when you squeeze them. Remove the potatoes from the oven, unwrap and cut in half lengthwise. Use a spoon to scoop out the pulp into a large bowl. Set aside. Save the leftover skins to make potato skins, or discard.

Melt butter or margarine in a large saucepan over low heat. Add the flour, stirring until smooth. Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly. Turn heat up to medium and continue stirring while slowly adding the milk. Continue to stir until mixture is thick and bubbly. Add the cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, and bacon. Mash the potato pulp with a hand-held potato masher, a fork, or a mixer, to get rid of the large chunks. Add the potato pulp to the pan, stirring to mix. When it is heated through, add the sour cream and stir to mix well. Do not boil the soup. Set aside to cool.

TO FREEZE
Freeze in freezer bags or rigid containers based on your family size. Seal, label and freeze.

TO SERVE
Thaw at least overnight in the refrigerator. Put the soup in a saucepan or microwave-safe container to heat. The soup will have the consistency of soft mashed potatoes. If needed, stir in some milk to make it more “soup-like”. But the soup should be thick, not runny. Once it’s heated through, spoon into serving bowls. Top each bowl with a sprinkle of shredded cheddar, sliced green onions and crumbled bacon as garnish.

Food for Thought

In my other blog, I wrote my thoughts on an article I read pertaining to food budgets. It really is amazing the attitudes and even priorities you encounter.

Like right now my priority is a nap, but Eric is of the attitude that he is full of energy and not needing a nap himself.

Leftover Chicken + Fresh Spinach = A New Dish

My 13 yo son said once that there was a reason why leftovers were leftovers. I think it was after I announced that was what was for dinner. He's not too big of a fan of leftovers if you didn't guess.

This morning while I was thinking of what to serve for dinner (haven't been too good at menus lately ... oops!), I decided on a leftover makeover. In the refrigerator were some seasoned chicken patties leftover from when I made homemade McChickens. I happened to have some linguine and fresh spinach too. All that equates to Chicken-Spinach Linguine. I ain't too good with coming up with cool recipe names.

I put water on to boil to cook the pasta. Next was cleaning and cooking the spinach. The rabbits got any wilted or bad leaves. They love me now. After the spinach was done and set aside. I sauteed some red onion and garlic in olive oil and butter. I added chicken boullion and water. Next comes the cream, milk, and parmesan cheese. Once that was done I added the spinach (I chopped it after cooking) and chicken, sliced thinly. I seasoned it with white pepper. The sauce was served over the liguine with a salad for a side.

I was able to use up leftover chicken and try my hand not only at a new recipe but add my own mark to it. Now here's hoping it tastes as good as it looks and smells!

Re-making Leftovers

Sometimes there are leftovers here even with the plague of locusts I call my children. Spaghetti is one of them. I can never get the right amount of noodles versus sauce it seems. (I serve the noodles then pour the sauce over the top.)

My family doesn't hate leftovers unless of course, you serve it to them more than twice in original form. Since putting down a mutiny isn't high on my list of priorities, I get creative. Re-making leftovers into a "new" dish keeps the natives fooled and happy and doesn't waste food. That saves me money. I could always use a bit more money, couldn't you?

We'll use the leftover spaghetti as today's re-make example. The poor spaghetti already had been made over once. However, since this particular spaghetti dish appears to be vain and wants a second makeover. That is rather pointless since I know what it look like after it has been chewed since my kids only like to talk to me when their mouths are overly full. Our spaghetti we had last week had its beginnings as leftover marinara sauce for Italian Herb Chicken, leftover canned spaghetti sauce used for pizzas and leftover tomato paste from making above mentioned chicken dish. I mixed all that together with a pound of Italian sausage I had browned (actually asked oldest child did). I then had my sauce to go with the noodles I had cooked. I like to use the whole grain (not brown whole wheat type though) pasta since my family is getting more fiber and can't tell I am cooking healthy on them since it looks like the less nutritious version.

Re-Make #1 saw some leftovers made into the spaghetti sauce. Luckily, just sauce was leftover this time (my hubby isn't a pasta person but humors me). With leftover sauce, I make pizzas either for my lunch, kids' snack and/or a dinner depending on the amount. My family never says no to pizza even if it was served four times in one week. There is an exception to every rule, I guess.

If there are any leftover spaghetti noodles, I turn it them chicken tetrazinni. There are a variety of recipes out there to suit any tase (unless you don't like tetrazinni like my hubby who will eat just one serving to be polite). To the noodles I add diced, cooked chicken; cream of chicken; shredded cheddar cheese; seasonings; and some milk to reach the consistency I like. Sometimes I throw in mushrooms if I have some. I bake the tetrazinni at 350 (with extra cheese sprinkled on top) in a casserole dish until the tetrazinni is heated through and bubbly.

The tetrazinni also freezes well so it can be put in the freezer and used for a meal at a later date. Ditto on the pizza.