Chicken Pot Pie with a Twist

I love dishes like chicken pot pie, because they are so comforting.  They use up whatever veg you have in the garden, or fridge.  The recipes are easily changed and manipulated to suit your own tastes and it is easily froze for future consumption on a cold fall evening.  As you can see in the picture  my twist on this classic recipe is in the crust, instead of one of the two usual suspects (dough crust or dumplings)  I use stove top stuffing.  Trust me this is delicious and sooo easy.  I don't need to mix batter to make this crust, I can just use left over stuffing from a chicken or turkey I have made or just whip up a box from the store.  If you make it from homemade stuffing it is that much better, plus you probably have left over chicken or turkey to use as well.  But I digress, and I had no left overs to use so on with the recipe.  First I gathered together all the veg that I wanted to use.  This included: Sweet potato, potatoes, turnip, carrots, parsnip, bell peppers, onion, and celery.

I chopped up all the root veg first as it takes longer to cook.  I put all this veg is a pot with some water and par-boiled it to give it a head start.  While that was cooking I sliced up the celery, bell peppers and onions and sautéed them.  Then GMF came in a said what about leeks, great idea, so he ran out to the garden and picked a couple small leeks to add.  I also added about 3 cloves of crushed garlic to the sautéing veg.  Note in the future I would do more leeks, celery and onions.  The ratio of root veg to others was a little to high this time.  Then I put everything together in a large pot and sprinkled with a couple tablespoons of flour and mixed in.  For the stock I used chicken stalk - about 2 cups by eye (just enough to almost cover the veg) and a couple shots of vermouth (this gives it a great flavour) it will reduce and thicken with the flour.  The main seasonings I used were salt, pepper and lots of sage.  Oh and just as I did when I was cooking I almost forgot the chicken.  I sliced up a couple chicken breasts and sautéed them with some oil and sage and added this to the mixture of vegetables.

When the mixture was all combined and the sauce thickened I added it to individual sized ramekins, but you can make this in one large casserole pot and serve family style as well.  Then I added the stove stop stuffing to the top and cooked in the oven on broil to crispen the stuffing.  

  

As you can see when it is cooked some of the juices will boil over the top.  Be careful when cracking into this it will be very warm on the inside, but soooo delicious.  Here's a not so great photo of what it looks like when someone has started munching.

I also had plenty to make three freezable individual dishes.  I used the tin pie plates for this because we had them on hand.  I put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer as well.  I need to get some pyrex individual pie plates for this in the future.

   

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Leek & Potato Soup with Crispy Bacon and Potato Skin Bits

Most of this week we saw summer temperatures, even at night.  I was hot outside in shorts and a tee.  But the weekend saw cooler fall temperatures and I decided it was time for some fall soup :).  With my plethora of leeks and the large amount of potatoes we bought from the farmers market at couple weekends ago, I thought I would try to make leek and potato soup, inspired by a fellow blogger over at Stoney Acres who also posted a recipe for this earlier this week.

The main ingredients of the soup where obviously the potato and the leek.  But what made it different then others is the crunchy bacon and potato skin topping.  As I was peeling the potatoes I decided I didn't just want to compost and waste these delicious bits of skin, so I thought I would try frying them to make crispy potato skin bits.  (the chunks of potato I didn't use in this recipe).  The potatoes for the soup were sliced about 1.5cm thick so they would cook fast.  I boiled them in about 2 cups of chicken stock and used the emersion blender to create a creamy soup base.

I sliced 4 strips of bacon into thin pieces and fried them in a fry pan.  Trick to getting great crispy bacon bits that wont burn, start with a little water in the fry pan, just enough to almost cover the bacon.  Cook the bacon on medium-high heat, as the bacon cooks the water boils away and then they fry in their own fat to crispen up at the very end (I saw this on an episode of Chef at Home with Michael Smith, he is one of my favourite TV chefs).  After the bacon is done don't waste that great bacon grease, throw the potato skins in there and crispen them up (watch them carefully as it will happen fast).  Then chop up a the leeks into about 1-2 cm slices and a couple cloves of garlic and fry that together in the left over bacon grease.  

Combine the leek and garlic with the potato soup and top with crispy bacon and potato bits.  Serve with thin garlic bread.  (Note you could also puree the leeks with the potatoes for a smoother soup)

   

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Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it!

This weeks recipe is a grilled salsa.  I have been picking more tomatoes that we can eat fresh lately so I decided to make some salsa.   I really enjoy a salsa with a smoky flavour so I grilled all the veg before blending it.  I grilled Tomatoes (2 beefsteak tomatoes, and about 30 grape tomatoes), onion (about 4 large slices), garlic (3 cloves), one habenero, one cherry bomb pepper, and one yellow bell pepper.  I blackened the peppers so that I could remove the skin.  The onions and tomatoes I grilled till soft and the garlic I grilled till soft and removed the skin. Once everything was grilled and skinned I put it all in a blender with about 1/4 of lime juice, 1/2 cup of cilantro chopped, 1 tsp of coriander seeds, 1 tsp of zilitol (a sugar substitute) 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper.  I blended it up and then canned it.  (Note this recipe was for a hot salsa because of the habenero you can adjust ingredients to match your spice level).

Thanks to Sharon for linking up last week with her Pumpkin and Silver Beet Lasagna.

Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it!

Last week I started a new blog series to highlight one recipe a week with ingredients that are grown locally.  I would like to thank my two fellow bloggers for linking up with me last week.  Please check out their blogs: Mark's Veg Plot and An Oregon's Cottage.   Last week I highlighted fajitas cooked on the fire while Mark highlighted braised beef in tomato sauce and Jami posted two great salsa recipes.  Please be sure to link up this week with a recipe of your own.  I find these links the best way to find new blogs with similar interests are you and a great way to have new people find you!  I participate in 3 other series:  Monday Harvest over at Daphne's Dandelions, Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon's Cottage and Saturday Spotlight at Suburban Tomato.  

I'm posting this weeks Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it! early because I will be away tomorrow competing in the provincial championships of disc golf.  Disc golf is another one of my hobbies, if you have not heard of the sport it is played similar to golf but with small discs instead of a ball and club.  Check out more info about it on the wiki.

Ok so on with my recipe for this week.  This week I made Thai beef salad.  Its a great dish to make at the end of the week when you haven't shopped in a while and have odds and ends.  GMF pulled out some beef tenderloin that had been frozen in Kobi beef marinade (often I make my own asian marinade with soya sauce, peanut butter, sesame oil, honey and salt and pepper).  I sliced it really really thin with my ceramic knife (if you haven't tried ceramic knives yet you should I LOVE them!).  I then sautéed the beef quickly in a little oil and sat off to the side.  I then cut up whatever veg I have on hand (this time I picked a cherry bomb pepper, cayenne pepper, cajun bell pepper, some broccoli and a carrot from the garden and I had a yellow bell pepper and an onion in the fridge.)  I sautéed these veg with a little soya sauce, sesame oil and salt and pepper.  I also sautéed some been sprouts (GMF thinks its crazy that I like bean sprouts so much, but they are so yummy).  I cooked up some chow mein noodles and then sauteed them with soya sauce, sesame oil, honey and salt and pepper.  I then add the beef and all the veg and toss.  Serve with some spinach leaves chopped, lots of cilantro and sesame seeds for garnish.  Depending on your spice level you can add some chili garlic paste (I added my homemade hot sauce) and here is the finished product!

Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it!

I am starting a new linked in blog series.  The series will be a weekly showcase of locally grown food, cooked simply, and enjoyed with love.  Each week I will post a recipe of something that I have cooked throughout the week and I invite fellow bloggers to do the same.  The idea is to connect garden bloggers with recipe bloggers, as these two things are so connected.  I was inspired to create this blog from my sister in law, who after reading my last post commented on how she really enjoyed how my blog combined these two things.  The blogs that I follow are almost entirely vegetable gardener bloggers or recipe bloggers.  Some of them are both, like me!.

This series will open on saturdays each week and be open till thursday.  I would love it if you could share a recipe that you have made this week.  Be sure to link back to the series on your post so others can connect.  I  find series blogging very inspiring and a great way to stumble upon amazing blogs I had not read before.  

So post your link here to be part of the first ever Grow it! Cook it! Eat it! Live it! series, and keep coming back each week to see what everyone is cooking!

   

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