Individual Chicken Pot Pies

It's been years since I have eaten a chicken pot pie. That was no accident, either.

The chicken pot pies that I knew and grew up on were of the frozen Banquet variety that took forever to cook, and always either ended up still cold in the center or the filling resembled molten lava that burned, what my mother always referred to as, the hair off your tongue.  I don't think my tongue actually has hair but I knew what she was trying to say, because I could feel that "hairless spot" every time I tried to eat something for days afterwards.

You ever have that happen to you?  It's creepy.

So I ran across these cans of Progresso Meal Starters in our local Dollar Tree for 50­­¢ a piece.  I grabbed one of each kind:  Fire Roasted Tomato, Basil Parmesan, Roasted Garlic and Three Cheese. (they also have portobello mushroom, but I am NOT a mushroom kind of gal)  Looking at the Roasted Garlic one night, they had a recipe on the side for chicken pot pie.  My brain started thinking back to something I saw on Pinterest once upon a time where people were making things in muffin pans lined with biscuits.  It just so happened that I had a can of Grands in the fridge.

First things first:  go ahead and preheat your oven to 350­° so it will be nice and hot when you're ready to put these puppies in there.

Since they were big biscuits, I decided to use my jumbo muffin tin.  (It should go without saying regular sized biscuits would go in a regular muffin tin, but I guess I should say it anyway.)  I didn't want them to stick, so I used my secret weapon to prep the tin.  Being a former cake queen, I found that Wilton's Cake Release is the most awesome thing ever to keep a cake from sticking, so I knew it would release those biscuits like nobody's business.

So after your pan is prepped, roll out the biscuits.  I have a rolling pin that my mom gave me when I moved out.  It's a huge, heavy marble contraption that collects dust on a shelf.

Don't have a rolling pin? Improvise.

I just took a big jar and pressed them flat, then used my hands to stretch them out and push them into the tins.  Make sure you cover the bottoms and the sides, spilling out over the tops of the pan just a little bit.  That will help keep the filling inside and not bubble over, soaking the bottoms of your biscuits. Secret weapon or no secret weapon, if that mixture bubbles over and ends up under the biscuits in the muffin tin...that's gonna stick.  AND be a nightmare to scrub out once it's cooked on.  Trust me.

Now what kind of chicken are we working with? The beauty of this recipe is that it doesn't require a lot of it to make these!

There are a lot of options, and three of them don't require cooking it yourself.  You can use a can of chicken (which would be my least favorite method, but if you're going to use it, hide it in a sauce is what I say).  You can buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.  Eat what you want to make other meals, and then take the remaining chicken and chop it to use in this dish.  That's a cool, economical way to get more than one meal out of a single purchase.  You can also opt to boil your own chicken (save the broth!), and chop it up to add to the sauce for the pot pies.  You can also purchase the frozen, pre-cooked variety, thaw it out and chop it up.

Open your can of meal starter and pour it into a medium sized pot and turn it to medium heat. This might be a good time to mention that if you don't have the meal starter, you can use a can of cream of chicken soup and about 1/4 cup of water - or broth if you cooked your own chicken. I did that last time (hence the pic), and it's just as good.

After it's in the pot, add a can of mixed vegetables and about 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  Let this heat through for about 5 minutes or so.  It should bubble a little bit but not boil, so adjust your heat as you need to accordingly.  You can actually start doing this before you begin prepping the biscuits in the muffin tins so it can be warming while you cook.  It doesn't really matter on the order, it just depends on your level of expertise in multi-tasking.  ;-)

Start carefully spooning your filling into the biscuits, making sure you leave enough room so that when the mixture bubbles in the oven it doesn't turn into a big mess.  If you think they will bubble over, put a cookie sheet beneath the muffin tin while they are cooking. You will thank me for this later if it happens to you.

Also, I should mention that a can of Grands has 8 biscuits...and my jumbo muffin tin has 6 openings. You can cook a second round after the first is done, or you can be impatient like me:  cut those biscuits in half and put them in a standard sized muffin tin to cook along with the others.  It doesn't affect cooking time, it just makes smaller pot pies. Also if you don't have a jumbo sized tin, you can make 16 smaller sized pot pies, which works out well for kids.  Not so much for hungry husbands, because they kind of look at it like it's a salad, or a "promise of more food to come."  (Thank you John Pinnette for that awesome reference that still makes me laugh to this day!)

Pop those buggers into the pre-heated 350­° oven and cook them exactly as it says on the package - about 15 or so minutes - depending on your oven. The biscuit will be golden brown when it's ready. Take them out and let them sit for about 4-5 minutes in the tins before you remove them from the tins. Try running a mini rubber spatula around the edges to get it to slide out the easiest.

These are so good...they put those bricks of pot pies from my childhood to shame.  Not that the bar was set real high to begin with, mind you.  They are also quick to throw together, easy to do, and freeze well if you are just making these for one person.  (This is Food for the "Single" Dude, after all!)  If you freeze them, try putting them in a single layer so that they don't stick together when you're ready to eat them.  You can either zap them in the microwave, or pop them back in the oven until heated through.  Don't let them thaw first.  The dough will get soggy.  Ew.

Enjoy!

The Cat Wins

I have been working on an entry for individual chicken pot pies for the past few days.  I tried to finish it up today, but it didn't quite work out.

This is why:

The 12 pound cat who decided to take up residence on my chest won out.  Apparently Wiley believes that snuggles trump recipes.  I'll give in to that sweet little face today.
Tomorrow, no matter how cute he is...that entry is getting finished.

70's Flashback: Beefaroni

Certain foods have the power to take me back to another time. Beefaroni is one of those.  When I make this, I feel like a little kid again.  This was one of those dishes that frequented our dinner plates while growing up, much to my brother's chagrin. He hates this recipe with a passion still to this day, but he will eat fish sticks.  Something is not quite right with that boy.

I have no idea really where this dish came from.  All I do remember is seeing the recipe printed on the side of a box of macaroni and cheese.  My mom cut it out, and for as long as I can remember, it stayed taped to the inside of the cabinet in our kitchen. Once when the cabinets got repainted, the recipe actually got lost for as while.  We tried to recreate it, but something just didn't taste right.  Later when the original was finally located, I realized that missing ingredient was Worcestershire sauce of all things.

So basically the recipe is pretty simple, easily made by even the most novice of cooks.  You will need one pound of ground beef, one box of your favorite brand of macaroni and cheese, 3/4 teaspoon of chili powder, one 16 ounce can of tomato sauce, 1 cup of chopped onion, 1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 2 1/2 cups of boiling water.

The best part about this recipe is that you can make it and use only one pot!  I don't know about you, but washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen is absolutely NOT my favorite form of recreation!

Grab an onion and chop it.  If you're feeling anal and need to measure it to be exactly one cup, go right ahead.  I'm lazy and just take a small onion and chop the whole thing.  I like the onions in this recipe, so a few extra is fine with me, and it doesn't affect the outcome one iota.

Now grab a sauce pot and use it to brown the ground beef, the chopped onion and the garlic. Once again with the garlic I'm lazy:  I buy the already chopped stuff and keep a jar of it in the fridge.  I find that I use it frequently enough to buy a large jar of it, but not frequently enough buy fresh garlic without it going bad.  Go figure that one.

Once the ground beef has browned, drain it and return it to the pot.  Now add in the salt, the chili powder and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir that together, and then add boiling water and tomato sauce.

Open the box of mac & cheese and remove the cheese packet.  Set that aside for later and pour the macaroni into the pot.  Stir well to combine, turn the heat to medium low and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.  You're going to have to stir this every few minutes to make sure that the noodles don't stick to the bottom.  Burnt noodles = eww.  No one wants burnt noodles.

Once the macaroni is tender, remove the pot from heat and slowly stir in the contents of the cheese packet.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving. Adding the cheese packet doesn't make it gooey like your traditional mac & cheese, but it sure does make it come together a lot better and tastes yummy!

The finished product is something that makes me think of my own sweet mother, hanging out in the kitchen of my childhood home. That particular room is the heart of that whole house.  It is where the majority of life happens or has happened within my family.  It's hosted parties, game nights, fights, and seen more work in a day than a lot of people see in a week.  That room is where, under the patient tutelage of my mother and father, I learned how to cook. The older I get, the more melancholy those memories seem to make me.

Maybe the recipe for beefaroni brings back bad memories. Maybe it makes you remember the task of opening numerous cans of Chef Boyardee.  Trust me, this is nothing like that stuff.  (I don't have favorable things to say about meat products that come in cans with the exception of tuna fish and salmon.)  So if you are one of those people who abhors the idea of beefaroni, give it another try if you haven't had it this way.
It just might change your mind.

I had this for breakfast the next morning after making it.  Cold.  Because that is just how I am:
Weird.

And yes...that is a Serenity ship sticker on my laptop next to a Firefly sticker.  (Below that is a Serenity sticker.  I'm a Browncoat for life.)
Told you I was a geek.  ♥