Recipe 12: Chicken Pot Pie

This past weekend I decided to make Pot Pie during one of our beer transfer sessions.  It was so good that I found myself craving it.  So it became the recipe of the week.  Here is the link to the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1/2 cup sliced celery
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 3/4 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C.)
2. In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, peas, and celery. Add water to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.
3. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Changes

The first change that I made was in how I cooked the veggies and chicken.  Instead of boiling and simmering them in water I added chicken broth instead, just to add a little more flavor.  I also added 1 small potato cut into small pieces.
 
So the second change that I made was to increase the sauce.  I doubled everything.  This was because several user recommendations had said that the pie was a little dry.  I ended up not being able to use all of the sauce that my made, but there was only a little extra.  So I think doubling the sauce is still a good idea.


The third change was I replaced the celery seed with garlic salt.  I also added a bit more than 1/4 teaspoon.  It was more to taste.  So I just added it until I thought it tasted right.


The final change was to cook it at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until the crusts was brown. 

The Process

The first step was to cut up all the veggies and chicken.  The picture below shows the size of my potato pieces.

Then simmer everything together.  I just added chicken broth to cover, brought it to a boil and then simmered it.  When covered you have to be pretty careful with the temperature.  I had to pull it off the burner due to almost overflows a couple of times.

 Sprinkles was generally uninterested in the cooking process this week.  After running around meowing at me she decided to settle down.

I bought the Pillsbury roll out dough.  The first time I made this I used the frozen ready made pie crusts, but I wanted to see how these worked.  Either one is fine, but I think I prefer the rolled up ones as the pie plate can be a little deeper or bigger.

Here the sauce is being started with the onions and butter.  While I double most of the stuff for the sauce I did not totally double the butter.  I just used 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Sprinkles always likes when I open the cabinets while I cook so that she can crawl around and get into tight places, as seen below.

So once everything was ready, I placed the chicken and veggies in the pie plate.

Then I poured the sauce over it.  It was a little difficult to get the sauce exactly as thick as I would have liked.  You really have to be careful and add the milk and chicken broth pretty quickly and don't turn the heat down too much until it starts simmering.

Next I covered the Pot pie with the second crust and cut a few slices in it.

And 45 minutes later... it was done!  I got a little bit of leakage on this pie, I think because my pie plate was a 9.5 inch one and the dough was for a 9 inch plate.  Which made it harder to make sure that the dough was pinched together.

And here is a side view.

This dish was really really good and very simple to make.  I definitely recommend trying this out.

Recipe 11: Quinoa Chili

 I decided to try something slightly healthier and less meaty than my recipes so far.  I have read a lot about Quinoa, which is supposed to be kind of a super food and really good for you.  So I have always wanted to try something with Quinoa... and I saw this recipe which looked really good and had a ton of good reviews.

Thus, I made Quinoa Chili.  Here is the link

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 (19 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 tablespoon minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the water has been absorbed, about 15 to 20 minutes; set aside.
2. Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and cook until the onion softens and turns translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, and cumin; cook and stir 1 minute to release the flavors. Stir in the tomatoes, black beans, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, zucchini, jalapeno pepper, chipotle pepper, and oregano. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
3. After 20 minutes, stir in the reserved quinoa and corn. Cook to reheat the corn for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the cilantro to serve.

Changes

I only made a few small changes to this recipe.  The first was that instead of boilding the quinoa in water I used Chicken Broth, just to add more flavor. The only other change that I made was to use canned corn instead of frozen corn.

The Process

This was not a recipe that Sprinkles appreciated much.  She was slightly interested in the Jalepenos as I chopped them up, but not much else.

The first step was to make the quinoa. Here it is starting up. 

This process required a lot of chopping. I had to use all of my knives and all of my cutting boards.  But eventually it was all ready.

By this time Sprinkles had  gotten on top of the cabinet where she could moniter everything and meow at me.

I first cooked the onions, shown below.

Then I added the other vegetables and the canned tomatoes and started cooking it.

Once the quinoa was ready I added that to the rest of the mixture.  The picture below was taken after adding the quinoa.

 After mixing everything together and letting it cook for a while, the chili was pretty much done.

The only thing left to do was to make cornbread!  My standard cornbread for chili is just Marie Callender's packaged cornbread.  It is simply to make and tastes great, especially with chili.

 

 I mixed up the cornbread as the chili was cooking and it was done at close to the same time.

 

I made up some honey butter for the cornbread.  Which is just some butter and honey melted together in the microwave, and then added cheese to the chili.

I have a chili that I typically make which has meat.  I really like that chili, and while I don't think the quinoa chili is really close to that, I do think that it was pretty good and it was much healthier. I was actually pretty surprised at how good it was.  While there was no meat in it, the quinoa definitely kind of made it meaty.  Overall it was a very good dish.

Recipe 10: Salmon Cakes

So this week's recipe was by far sprinkles favorite recipe every... like out of everything I have made, there is this recipe, would would be rated like a 100 and everything else would be in the range of 10.... she just loved the salmon.

This week I made Salmon Cakes with a side dish of green beans and cherry tomatoes.  The link for the salmon cakes is here. and the link to the greean beans and cherry tomatoes is here.

Salmon Cakes

Ingredients

• 1 (14.75 ounce) can salmon, drained and flaked
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour for coating
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Combine salmon, onion, egg, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, black pepper, cheese and parsley; mix well. Shape into four patties. Dust lightly with flour. Chill for 20 minutes.
2. In a large skillet heat butter and olive oil over medium high heat. Cook the patties until browned on both sides, about 10 minutes. Drain briefly on paper towels before serving. 

Changes

So I made three changes to this recipe.  The first was that I added an extra egg to the salmon mixture.  This was one of the recomendations made by a lot of other users, and I think that it helped sort of hold the cakes together a lot better.

The second change was how I cooked it.  Instead of browning it in the skillet I decided to cook it in the oven.  So I cooked it at 375 for about 15 minutes on each side.  The final change was how I dusted it.  The recipe called for flour, but since I was cooking it in the oven I decided that I wouldn't use flour.  So after the first 15 minutes I flipped it and then dusted the cakes with parmesean cheese, which I think was a really good move.

Green Beans with Cherry Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
• 2 cups cherry tomato halves

Directions

1. Place beans and water in a large saucepan. Cover, and bring to a boil. Set heat to low, and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain off water, and set aside.
2. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in sugar, garlic salt, pepper and basil. Add tomatoes, and cook stirring gently just until soft. Pour the tomato mixture over the green beans, and toss gently to blend. 

The Process

So I was a little bit nervous about this recipe, mainly because it used canned salmon.  So I have used canned tuna before... but salmon... I just wasn't sure how it would go.  I decided to get the most expensive can of salmon, because I figured, I should go with the best quality.  Also it was only thirty cents more, so it didn't really break the bank. 

 

So the one thing that I had to do that I was not expecting at all was that I had to debone the salmon.  There were still bones in the canned salmon, as well as some skin, which I also removed.  So that was kind of a messy process, but eventually I got it all seperated.  The picture below shows the end result.

After I stated mixing the salmon stuff, sprinks got the scent and came to check it out.  She was very very intersted and I had to smack her away several times.

Eventualy she discoverd that I had poured the juice out in the sink..... so she leapt at that, she would paw at the juice and then lick it off her paw and then go back in for more.

 I got the cakes all prepared.  The were kind of various sizes... but I suppose that didn't really matter.  I drizzled a pan with olive oil and put the cakes on that.  Then into the oven they went.

As I was working on the side dish, sprinkles kept licking her paws, savoring the taste of the salmon.

Once the salmon cakes were cooking, I started on the side dish, so I chopped up the Green Beans.  I didn't use 1.5 pounds, it was actually 12 ounces, but I think it was still a good ratio.

 I simmered the green beans for 10 minutes and then I worked on the cherry tomatoes.  I melted the butter and mixed the basil and sugar with it.

Then I added the cherry tomatoes to that.

Finally, I added that mixture to the green beans and tossed it to coat the green beans in the butter sauce.

As I mentioned before, I cooked the cakes for about 30 minutes, it might have been a little bit more.  After 15 minutes I flipped them.  Then added the parmesean cheese to the top.  One of the cakes was pretty crumbly, the other three had pretty good consistency.  I then cooked them until the cheese was melted and they were starting to get brown.  It was about 15 extra minutes, probably a bit longer.

I then made a sauce which was 2 tablespoons mayo and 1 tablespoon of dijon mustad.  The sauce was actually very complementary and very good on the salmon cake.  I thought the salmon cake ended up being really good.  I was pretty surprised, just because I wasn't sure how the canned salmon was going to work out.  I though the side dish was actually really good.  So in general, the meal was really good.

As a bonus here is Sprinks review of the Salmon:
7yu6ZAOUJ! crfdx1

Dessert 2: Baklava

 Since my Key Lime Pie worked out pretty well, I figured that I would attempt another dessert.  After countless hours of research I settled on Baklava.  This link is the recipe that I used, and it is shown below.

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough
• 1 pound chopped nuts
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.
2. Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan. Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.
3. Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.
4. Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Serve in cupcake papers. This freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it is wrapped up.

Changes

I made a few changes based on the recommendations of other users.  The first change was to the nut mixture.  In addition to the cinnamon I also added 1/4 cup of sugar to the nuts and tossed it.  I am not sure that this needed it, but since I was using all walnuts, I thought the sugar might be good.

 

The second change was in the sauce.  I made 1.5 times the sauce that they called for.  This meant 1.5 cups water, 1.5 cups sugar, 1.5 teaspoons vanilla, and 3/4 cup honey.  I increased the honey to 1 cup in addition to that.

 

The last change I made was that I cooked it at 325 degrees instead of 350.

The Process

One of the recommendations was to make the sauce and then cool it.  This sounded good to me, so I started there.  The sauce was pretty easy to make.  Once that was done, I set it aside to cool.

 

Then I began chopping up the nuts.  I don't own a chopper, so that took quite a while, but the end result of the nuts tossed with cinnamon and sugar. 

I then began with the phyllo dough.  I let the dough thaw a little bit before using.  The recipe called for the dough to be cut in two.  Instead of doing that, I followed one of the recommendation and simply folded it over.  Here  is the dough laid out:

And here is the first layer of the Baklava.  I laid 4 sheets folded over.  After each fold I buttered the top layer lightly.  I melted the butter and then used a brush to apply the butter.  You have to be very gentle to not rip the dough.

After the first layer I applied the nuts.  The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of the mixture, but that was not nearly enough, so I just filled the layer with nuts.

Then I continued layering.  After a layer of nuts it was one folded layer of dough, then butter, then nuts, then repeat.  The top layer was 3 sheets.

Finally, I cut the Baklava into squares and put it into the oven.

After the dessert was in the oven, Sprinkles decided to check out the dishes.  This was not nearly as exciting as dishes that involve meat.  So she soon left.

I checked the Baklava after 45 minutes and it was pretty close to done.  I let it go for a few extra minutes, then pulled it out.

I then slowly spooned the honey sauce over the Baklava.  It doesn't really look that different, but the picture below has the sauce spooned over it.

Here is a picture of one of the pieces.  I thought that this turned out really well.  The bottom layer was soaked in honey and delicious.  I'm not very good at describing food, but this was well worth the effort and I highly recommend it.

Recipe 9: Chicken Cordon Bleu

So one of the recipes that I have been thinking about making for a long time is Chicken Cordon Bleu, I just was never confident enough about my ability to pull it off.  Especially since Cordon Bleu is always associated with those fancy looking cooking schools that are always advertising on TV.

Anyway, I finally felt like I could attempt it, though I wasn't sure exactly how good it would be.  Here is the recipe that I used: Link

Ingredients

• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 6 slices Swiss cheese
• 6 slices ham
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. Pound chicken breasts if they are too thick. Place a cheese and ham slice on each breast within 1/2 inch of the edges. Fold the edges of the chicken over the filling, and secure with toothpicks. Mix the flour and paprika in a small bowl, and coat the chicken pieces.
2. Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and cook the chicken until browned on all sides. Add the wine and bouillon. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.
3. Remove the toothpicks, and transfer the breasts to a warm platter. Blend the cornstarch with the cream in a small bowl, and whisk slowly into the skillet. Cook, stirring until thickened, and pour over the chicken. Serve warm.

Changes

So the recipe didn't really say how thin to pound the chicken.  One of the comments recommended pounding it until it was about 1/2 inch.  So I tried doing that, I think I got fairly close.  Basicially this is just to reduce cooking time.


The first change that I made was instead of coating the chicken with flour I used bread crumbs.  After I had put the ham and swiss in the chicken and folded it over I brushed an egg over the chicken, then I coated it with bread crumbs.  Since the recipe called for flour mixed with paprika, I added the same amount to the bread crumbs.  I think that I should of added a little bit more, but it turned out fine.


The next change, was after browning the chicken in the skillet, I then cooked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  A lot of people recommended that as a better way to finish cooking it.  

This meant that the sauce was also slightly different.  After putting the chicken in the oven I mixed the wine, bouillon, corn starch and heavy cream in a bowl and simmered it for about 10 minutes.

The Process

The first step of course was to have the chicken inspected.  Sprinkles made sure that it was not spoiled.  I had to stop her before she actually ate it, but other than that she did a great job.

I pounded the chicken and then began the process if filling it with the ham and swiss.  One of the thing that the recommendations added to to wrap the cheese in the ham.  This keeps it from melting out.

I then folded them up and secured them with toothpicks.  One user recommended using string, which might actually be much easier, it was kind of annoying trying to get the toothpicks out after they had been cooked.

Then I coated them with bread crumbs and put them in the skillet. I cooked them a little longer thaen the recipe called for.  Here they are right before I put them in the oven.

And 20 minutes later here they are after taking them out of the oven

 And finally, here are two picture of them cut up.  One without the sauce and one with the sauce.

I think that this recipe turned out pretty good.  I think that the second one that I had was actually a lot better than the first one.  I am not sure why.  I do think that I might actually switch the cheese and not use swiss.  I am not sure exactly what kind of cheese would be best though.

Anyway, the recipe ended up turning out very well, and really wasn't that hard.

Dessert 1: Key Lime Pie

This isn't actually the first dessert that I have made in this whole cooking thing that I've been doing.... but I feel like writing about this one first... so it is number one. This past Wednesday was Pie day, and while I was too busy that night to actually make pie, I still wanted to do it sometime. So Thursday I decided that I would make some pie and key lime pie just sounded really good. So I investigated and discovered that if I wanted to make actual key lime pie it would take the juice of 20 key limes!!! This seemed a little bit ridiculous to me, so I searched a bit more and found a replacement recipe that used nomals limes.

I found the recipe in.... yahoo answers, which isn't always the best source of information, but the poster claimed to be a chef and the recipe sounded pretty good to me. So I went with that. Here is the recipe.

Lime Filling
4 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/2 cup lime juice from 3 to 4 limes
4 large egg yolks
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Whisk zest and yolks in medium bowl until tinted light green, about 2 minutes. Beat in condensed milk, then juice; set aside at room temperature to thicken.

Graham Cracker Crust
11 graham crackers , processed to fine crumbs
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix crumbs and sugar in medium bowl. Add butter; stir with fork until well blended. Pour mixture into 9-inch pie pan; press crumbs over bottom and up sides of pan to form even crust. Bake until lightly browned and fragrant, about 15 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack; cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes.

After crust is cooled, pour lime filling into crust; bake until center is set, yet wiggly when jiggled, 15 to 17 minutes. Return pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours. (Can be covered with lightly oiled or oil-sprayed plastic wrap laid directly on filling and refrigerated up to 1 day.)

Whipped Cream Topping
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/2 lime , sliced paper thin and dipped in sugar (optional)

Up to 2 hours before serving, whip cream in medium bowl to very soft peaks. Adding confectioners’ sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, continue whipping to just-stiff peaks. Decoratively pipe whipped cream over filling or spread evenly with rubber spatula. Garnish with optional sugared lime slices and serve.


The Process

I firstput the grahm crackers in a bowl and crunched them up using a potato masher. It took a little while, but eventually I got it to mostly crumbs.

Then I added the butter and sugar and mixed it all together all laid it out in the pie plate. I only had a 9.5 inch pie plate, which was a little bigger than it called for, but I figured it was ok.

I put that in the oven and then I made the filling. The first part was to get the juice of the limes and the zest. To get the juice I got to use my lemon squeezer for the first time. I had to use about 4 limes to get enough juice. It was a lot of squeezing, but eventually I got enough.

I also had to get zest off the limes, which was a lot of work. 4 teaspoons doesn't sound like a lot.... but when you are talking about zest it most definitely is. Anyway, I added the egg yolks and the zest and mixed them up. Then the condensed milk and finally the juice and whisked it until it was all blended together. I set that aside and waited for the crust to complete.

NOTE: I didn't actually start cooking the crust until after, so it might make a lot more sense to do the filling first and then let it sit while you

Once the crust was done I let it cool and then I added the filling and let it cook. I let it cook for 15 minutes and tested it. It was jiggly and seemed solid so I ended it then.

I didnt make the whipped cream that night, but I did taste the pie. It was really really good! It was a little bit shallow, I think partially because the pie plate was a little bit bigger than was recommended, but that didn't matter, it was still great.

The next day I made the whipped cream, I think that it actually improved the pie, it just balanced out the limeness of the pie and made it just slightly better.