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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Saturday Spotlight: Rainbow Carrots

This is my first Saturday Spotlight. The spotlight is a series hosted by Suburban Tomato where different garden bloggers write posts about one specific crop that they are growing. I have chosen to write my first spotlight on my rainbow carrots because as I am posting my harvest pics many people are commenting on how good my carrots are looking.

This is the first year I am growing rainbow carrots, but I have been cooking with them for years - whenever I can find them. They make any plate look beautiful - whether they are roasted slowly with balsamic and herbs or simply cut on a plate. The colours are so vibrant it will put a smile on everyones face.  I planted the rainbow mix from: OSC Seeds in Waterloo Ontario.  Here is there description of them:

"A Kaleidoscope of colourful carrots. Atomic Red, Bambino, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White and Solar Yellow. Sweet and crunchy; great for salads! An excellent all purpose carrot. We expect market gardeners will be especially pleased as this unusual colour combination is hard to find!"

Here is my latest harvest of these carrots.  They could be larger but I wanted to eat them!  I am picking them as needed and leaving some in the ground to keep growing.  

 As you can see in the next picture that the carrots with the red skin also have red stalks near the top of the carrot, so you can pick out the red ones while still in the ground.  You'll also notice that there are no white ones in this harvest.  Seems the white ones are still very thin, they must take longer to grow so they are being left in the ground.

Here are the carrots simply sliced in half.  I think It looks like flames from a fire, beautiful bright oranges, and yellows.  The red ones when cut open are not red in the middle, they are either a dark orange or a bright yellow.  The red with bright yellow in the middle are my favourites, they both look the prettiest with their gradient of colour and they seem to taste a little sweeter.

 Here you can see the outside compared to the inside of each carrot.  The halves are matched vertically.

I only planted 2 small rows of these carrots this year.  This if my first year with my new raised beds so we did a variety of crops to get an idea of what grows well and what we like.  We will definitely plant these again next year but in greater numbers!  They are planted in a 1 foot deep raised bed with regular garden soil fertilized with some miracle grow vegetable food before planting.  Here are the two rows as they started to sprout.

Here is the growing description from OSC Seeds:

Carrots will grow well in any open, wellcultivated, deep garden soil. As the seed is quite small, mix it with some sand when sowing. Once soil temperature rises above 7.5 C (45F), sow seed about 7-15 mm (1/4-1/2") deep in rows spaced 45-60 cm (18- 24") apart. Stagger several sowings over the next few weeks. Keep the seedbed evenly moist during the 3 week germination period. Thin the seedlings during the early stages of growth until they are 5 cm (2") apart. Keep the plants evenly watered, weed free and avoid high nitrogen fertilizers. Harvest any time after the carrot roots develop good colour.

As I continue to harvest I will post some of my favourite ways to prepare these rainbow carrots.

Tonight I just ate them sliced with some radishes, broccoli and cucumber with a little freshly ground salt.

Here's the rainbow carrots grilled whole then sliced, topped with micro greens and chili lime sauce.

Have you ever tried rainbow carrots?  Which colour is your favourite?  What is your favourite way to prepare these beauties?  Share your experiences in the comments below.

Also be sure to follow Live in the Yard for more ideas on how to serve these carrots and other delicious veg harvested from your garden!