Chicken Pot Pie

Posted on by Sarah

Okay, for once I’m gonna shut up about other random stuff and just talk about food. FOOOOOOD. Like

THIS.

CHICKEN.

POT.

PIE.

It’s true that you’ll find thousands of chicken pot pie recipes out there on the internet and in every self-respecting cookbook, but this, my friends, is a pot pie to be reckoned with. This past Christmas, when our family was holed up in a cabin in chilly Show Low, AZ (yes, it does get chilly and even snow in parts of Arizona) I decided we were allowed to indulge in comfort food galore. Over the three days of our stay, we had creamy ham and potato chowder with homemade biscuits, herbed turkey meatballs with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, and this chicken pot pie. (I guess you’re a pretty dyed-in-the-wool foodie when you remember every meal you ate on a trip seven months later.) It was an interesting challenge to make do with whatever was on hand in an unfamiliar kitchen, as well as shop at unfamiliar stores. (An aside: if you ever want to feel truly sad for humanity, go to Wal-Mart at 5pm Christmas Eve.) In the spirit of making do, I cobbled together parts of several existing recipes for chicken pot pie I found online and ended up with this version. Despite having to use a temperamental gas stove, an old-fashioned temperature-dial oven, and haphazard kitchen tools, it came out like the pot pie of my dreams. Flaky crust, rich herbed gravy, sautéed vegetables with just a hint of caramelization, and of course chicken combined for comfort food heaven.

I do realize that it is July now–not exactly pot pie season–but comfort food (and the need for it) takes no summer breaks. Sometimes you just crave something savory, warm, and gooey. For those days, this is the ticket.

Chicken Pot Pie
(A Love Letter to Food original recipe)

Ingredients:

2 9-inch unbaked pie crusts
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large Russet or sweet potato, peeled and diced 1/4 inch thick
1 c. carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 small/medium onion, diced
1/3 c. butter
1/3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3/4 tsp. dried ground thyme
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
1 1/2 c. chicken broth (homemade if possible!)
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. shredded cooked chicken
salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add potato and sauté about 5 minutes. Add carrots, celery, and onion and cook another 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are soft and carrots and onions just begin to brown. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

3. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add flour and whisk to combine. Add salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Slowly add chicken broth and milk. Increase heat to medium and continue to whisk/stir constantly until sauce becomes thick. (The whisk should leave a very defined trail in the sauce when it’s thick enough.) Remove from heat. Add chicken and vegetables to sauce and stir to combine.

4. Place 1 pie crust in pie dish. Pour hot chicken-vegetable mixture in, smoothing the top. Cover with second pie crust and seal the edges. Cut slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

5. Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Makes one 9-inch pie.

Orange Poppy Seed Shortbread

Posted on by Sarah

Recently, I read Gretchen Rubin’s somewhat controversial bestseller The Happiness Project. If you haven’t heard of it, the premise is that the author set out to spend a year of her life becoming happier. The book chronicles her research and experiences in twelve months devoted to different aspects of happiness and well-being. A perfectly commendable pursuit, right? The controversy sets in when you realize that Rubin is an upper-crust Manhattanite with housekeepers and nannies, millions in the bank, and not a single tragic event in her life’s history. Then there’s the problematic issue that the book focuses entirely on her personal well-being, not the well-being of her family or the world at large. (Nary a service project appears in the twelve months.) And, oh yeah, her version of becoming happier is to keep extensive checklists of tasks to complete every day. Not exactly Zen. Strangely, though I was seriously put off by these facts, I ended up reading the entire thing. And strangely again, I got a lot out of it. While I disagreed in major ways with Rubin’s project itself, the research she shared yielded a lot of interesting points about happiness that were real keepers for me. For example, the concept that we are largely in control of our own happiness and can choose it. Or that little things, like putting on the right upbeat music or indulging in a minor splurge (like a pint of fresh raspberries, let’s say), can lift your spirits in a big way. I’ve been trying to keep these truths in mind when I find myself in an irritable, negative state of mind, and have had some genuine success. All in all, I’d say The Happiness Project is worth reading if you can get past its flaws, because ultimately it can serve as a good reminder of how to take responsibility for your own mood.

So why do I bring all that up? And how does it have to do with the orange cookie-type dessert pictured above? Well, I do like to share thoughts on interesting books, but the whole reason I was thinking about The Happiness Project is that I can’t stop thinking about how I laughed out loud at the part where Rubin congratulates herself that she “didn’t grouse when [her husband] made three rich desserts in three nights.” Ha! Not complaining about rich desserts! Ha! Husbands voluntarily making desserts! You sure have it rough, Gretchen!

Sometimes–I won’t say often–I too crave a dessert that’s actually light–not too rich, not chocolate. (Though a rich dessert baked by my husband would seem to me a very welcome surprise, not a nuisance to be suffered. What’s that saying–don’t kick the man out of bed for eating crackers? Or don’t kick him out of the kitchen for making cake, perhaps?) Still, yes, some meals simply call for something delicate to finish. This little shortbread is just right for when the mood strikes for something lighter. (And you can always top it with vanilla ice cream if light isn’t what you’re after.) Served with tea or coffee, it would also make a divine afternoon snack. And did I mention it’s super easy? You don’t even need a bowl; the whole thing is made in the food processor. Maybe I should send the recipe to Gretchen Rubin to give to her husband–or just because with its lovely lightness and hint of orange, making and eating it made me happy. 🙂

Orange Poppyseed Shortbread
(From Real Simple)

Ingredients:

1/2 c. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 c. all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1/2 c. powdered sugar
generous 1/8 tsp. salt
2 tsp. grated orange zest
2 tsp. poppy seeds

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9″ round cake pan or fluted removable-bottom tart pan.

2. In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, process the butter, flour, sugar, and salt until moist clumps form. Add the orange zest and poppy seeds and pulse briefly just to combine.

3. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan. Bake until lightly golden, about 25 minutes.

4. Using a serrated knife, cut the warm shortbread into wedges.

Zucchini Bread

Posted on by Sarah

In one of my favorite books about food, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver writes about her experience with “Zucchini Wars.” You may be picturing galloping hoards hurling green, oblong grenades at each other, but in fact, Zucchini Wars are the annual challenge in the South (where Kingsolver lives on her farm) to rid oneself of excess zucchinis in July. Zucchini seems to be one of those plants that has taken to the old adage “bloom where you are planted” like gangbusters, thriving in any condition to yield a bumper crop year after year. Kingsolver contemplates the concept of an automobile engine that runs on zucchini, and–my favorite line in the chapter–recalls Garrison Keillor’s quote that “July is the only time of year when country people lock our cars in the church parking lot, so people won’t put squash on the front seat. I used to think that was a joke.”

Presumably, this pursuit of using up all your over-abundant zucchini explains the origins of zucchini bread. I can think of no other reason why someone would look at this:

and think of this:


For a long time, I was skeptical of zucchini bread (and reasonably so, I’d say). I wouldn’t jump at the chance to eat asparagus bread or bok choy bread–at least not as a sweet breakfast–so what makes zucchini bread any different?

Frankly, I don’t really know. Except that people don’t seem to have major harvests of asparagus or bok choy to get off their hands, so those haven’t taken off in the form of quick breads (yet). But if you add sugar and other yummy ingredients to just about anything, it seems to work as a breakfast treat.

Here in Arizona, we definitely don’t have Zucchini Wars, but I occasionally end up with a zucchini or two I somehow didn’t use as planned. Enter this recipe. It does the trick of using up my zucchini without me resorting to a clandestine Zucchini Drop in someone’s car while they innocently worship at church. (Though I do live just a quarter mile from my church…wonder what else I could conveniently offload…) Once I finally tried zucchini bread, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it–the zucchini adds a colorful little crunch you don’t usually find in a quick bread. And since the other ingredients are standard muffin-y things like brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon, you still feel like you’re eating something light and sweet, not a dinner-time side dish.

And now I’m off to develop my soon-to-be famous Asparagus Bread recipe…

Zucchini Bread
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs
1/2 c. applesauce
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. white sugar
3 tsp. vanilla
2 c. grated zucchini

Directions:

1. Grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, mix dry ingredients: whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.

3. In a large bowl, mix eggs, applesauce, oil, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just mixed. Stir in zucchini until completely incorporated. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

4. Bake 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Makes 2 loaves.

Barbecue Pork Pizza

Posted on by Sarah

Everybody has that weird thing that they enjoy, even though most other people hate it or are indifferent to it. Maybe you get a high out of cleaning toilets, or a satisfaction from balancing your budget, or maybe you’re like my aesthetician friend who gets a perverse pleasure out of popping people’s zits. My own personal strange divertissement comes from……(drum roll)…….(don’t worry, it’s nothing super gross)…..(like wiping dog butts)…..(or chewing someone else’s gum)…….

meal planning!

Whew! See? Nothing too funky. Meal planning is an art I strive to perfect every week. I get a thrill from the challenge: Can I make use of the foods already occupying space in my pantry and fridge and not spend too much on special new ingredients? Can I achieve a balance of cooking trusted standards but also incorporating the new recipes I’m dying to try? Can I somehow make it all work together like a giant puzzle? Well, I try. To some people, that probably sounds miserable, but to me it’s the pleasure of bringing order out of chaos–delicious order, if at all possible. So you probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that the gold standard, the hit-the-jackpot of meal planning for me is that diamond-in-the-rough, one-two punch of…..

the Double Duty Dinner!!

The Double Duty Dinner is the kind that you prepare one night and are then able to use in a different way another night. This is not the same thing as leftovers. It’s a creative reinvention of one or more components of one dinner to create a second dinner. The best is when the second dinner bears little resemblance to the first. Then you really and truly don’t feel you’re having leftovers.

This fantastic Barbeque Pork Pizza is probably my favorite example of such a high-scoring Double Duty Dinner. Well, it’s the second half of it. The first half is another dinner: pork tenderloin slathered in barbeque sauce, slow-cooked in the Crock Pot. Barbeque pulled pork can of course be used in several ways for the first dinner: served on buns as a sandwich, served with corn on the cob and potato salad in summer, roasted sweet potatoes and onions in winter, or any combination of sides you can dream up. The key is to make extra and save it for later in the week, when you’ll make this pizza and kill another day’s meal plan bird with one stone. Because you do not want to miss out on this pizza. Tender barbeque pork, gooey mozzarella, crispy red onions, and some cilantro for a bite that rounds out the whole mix. If my digestive tract would let me, I could eat this entire pizza.

And seriously, I looooove meal planning. So if you’re ever interested, comment or shoot me an email and I’d be happy to send you some sample week meal plans. It would make my day!

Barbeque Pork Pizza
Ingredients:

1 lb. store-bought refrigerated or homemade whole wheat pizza dough (such as Trader Joe’s)
3/4 c. barbeque sauce
1/2 lb. barbeque pulled pork (leftover from your first Double Duty Dinner)
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 of a small red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 c. loosely packed cilantro leaves

Directions:

1. Remove pizza dough from refrigerator and follow package directions for rising. (Trader Joe’s dough rises for 20 minutes.) If using homemade pizza dough, follow recipe directions for rising.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

3. Grease a 15 x 10 inch jelly roll pan. Spread pizza dough across pan, overlapping the edges slightly. (It will contract as it bakes.) Bake in preheated oven about 10 minutes.

4. Heat oven to 450 degrees.

5. Spread barbeque sauce over dough, followed by pulled pork. Top with mozzarella, red onion, and cilantro.

6. Bake an additional 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and red onion begins to wrinkle and brown.

Serves 4.

Pesto Pasta and Bean Salad

Posted on by Sarah


Today was a pretty chill, laid-back Sunday for our family. The best kind, if you ask me. My mom generously took our kids overnight last night, so my husband and I got to have dinner at the fabulous Wrigley Mansion, a Phoenix landmark since 1932, and sleep in this morning. It was kind of shocking how late we were able to sleep without the kids running around/arguing/informing us about poopy Pullups. (Anybody have a sure-fire solution for nighttime potty training a 3-year-old?) Anyway, the two of us went out for a late breakfast, which we almost never do–partly because we rarely eat out with kids and partly because I have a thing about brunch. I hate it. Seriously, it ruins my whole day. I’m the kind of person who wants to get up and eat something light and drink my coffee pretty much immediately. Brunch basically flies in the face of these desires. You have to do your hair and get dressed, get in your car and drive somewhere, order and wait until they bring out your food. Then you always, ALWAYS eat way more than you normally would and at lunchtime you still feel full and kinda gross but you want to eat. So you eat lunch and you feel even more over-full and gross. See where this is going? Whole day shot. You’re dead to me, brunch.

Still, despite my issue with brunch, our day was a pleasant one. After we picked the kids up from Grandma’s we went on a family outing to Ikea, where we got some fun stuff for the house, then went to Guitar Center, where the kids enjoyed jamming on the 95 keyboards they have stacked in one room. But even after skipping out on the meatballs and lingonberry sauce my family had for lunch at Ikea, those lemon ricotta pancakes I had at brunch still hung like dead weight in my stomach. Thankfully, our plans for dinner were the definition of light: this super-simple pesto pasta and bean salad. Yay!

If there was ever a straightforward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get salad, this is it. I love it for its simplicity, its quick prep time, and its healthful vegetarian ingredients. It would make a great side to tote to a summertime potluck–but for our family, served with a side of crusty bread, this is plenty for a modest dinner!

Pesto Pasta and Bean Salad
(Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens)

Ingredients:

8 oz. whole wheat penne or other small pasta
1 7-oz. container purchased basil pesto (or make your own)
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 15-oz. cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
3 c. arugula
2 oz. Parmesan/Reggiano cheese, shaved

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water; set aside.

2. Meanwhile, make dressing by combining pesto, red wine vinegar, and salt in a large bowl. Add cooked pasta, beans, and arugula and stir gently to combine. Top with shaved cheese.

Makes about 8 cups.