Charming Chicken Pie

Using dishes available

When I first moved out of home, I had quite a glory box stashed away – linen, lots of pottery, fine bone china, kitchen odds and ends etc. I also had a few cookbooks – not many, as I had not done much cooking apart from at school, and didn’t know how much I would come to enjoy playing around with food later on. This was pre-Internet too (wow, I cannot imagine going back to that!).

One of the cookbooks I had was a small, slim hardback, a pocket sized book almost, containing chicken recipes. It was part of a set, and I think I had 3 or 4 different ones. I can’t remember much about the books, but I do know that my chicken pie recipe came from this time, and was one of the first successful recipes I actually cooked in my new “adult” life. For many years it was a staple in my house, and I later adapted it to make a vegetarian version by just leaving out the chicken and putting in chunks of carrot, potato, pumpkin or whatever else I had lying around.

This week I decided to make a chicken pie for the first time in about 4 or 5 years. The only trouble was, as I am in between houses (move part 1 down, move part 2 coming up in about 10 days’ time!) and most of my kitchen stuff is in boxes, I have limited baking dishes at hand – and my favourite pie dish is not at hand! I am trying to use up what is in the fridge/freezer this week, and I had two sheets of shortcrust pastry to use, but they don’t quite stretch to fit the larger-than-pie-dish I had available. I ended up just improvising and making the shape of the pie slightly freeform (that’s all the rage now anyway, right?) within the dish. I was a bit worried the filling might ooze out during cooking, but in fact it worked out really well and was totally delicious.

Freeform is trendy…

Conveniently using a store-bought cooked chook, this pie is great cold the next day, and also reheats well.

I did blind-bake the underneath pastry sheet this time, but if short of time I don’t always bother – it depends how you like your pastry, and I don’t mind mine a bit soft and raw underneath (and yeah, I did used to nick bits of pastry and raw sausage meat when Mum was making sausage rolls, as a kid).

I also had to place a square of foil over the centre after the first 10 mins or so, or else the pastry would have burnt.

Served with eggplant skewers

Chicken Pie

1 barbequed chicken

2 sheets frozen puff or shortcrust pastry, thawed

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp plain flour

2 button mushrooms, finely chopped

½ green capsicum, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

⅔ cup milk

1 ¼ cups chicken stock

cracked pepper, to taste

beaten egg, to glaze

Line a greased pie dish with 1 sheet of pastry. Optional – bake-blind for a few minutes until puffed up slightly.

Pull the meat from the cooked chicken, discarding skin/bones. Depending on the size of the chicken you will probably need about ⅔ of it, so put the rest aside to use in something else.

Chop the chicken meat and place in a dish with the mushroom, capsicum, celery and parsley. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat; add flour, stir well to break up any lumps and cook until bubbling. Add the milk first and then the chicken stock, gradually, stirring constantly to form a smooth sauce. When all liquid is incorporated, fold the chicken mixture through the sauce and gently combine over low heat for a minute or so.

Pour chicken mixture into pie dish. Top with the second sheet of pastry, press down to seal edges, and glaze with beaten egg.

Bake in 200C oven for approx 30 minutes, or until pastry is puffed up and golden brown. If the pastry puffs up too quickly and starts to burn, cover with a square of foil over the centre.

For vegetarian version – leave out the chicken and instead, add chunks of vegies of your choice – if using hard vegies like potatoes, partially steam for a couple of minutes in the microwave first before adding them to the sauce. Use vegetable stock instead of chicken.

Serves 4-6 depending on appetites and what you have with it.

Happy Fooding!

 

Choc Cherry Slice…..Again….and Again….

I was so happy with the choc cherry raisin slice I made the other day, that I have made it another two times since – 3 times in 3 weeks! I think this easy no-bake treat will be a firm, no-fail favourite for a long time to come. A great thing to have the ingredients always on stand-by for, as you can make it and cut up an hour or so later – it doesn’t take a long time to set, so you can easily make it at the last minute.

Yum!

Happy Fooding!

Slice Me Up Baby….

Last week when I made the Soupe Barley, I bought a box of raisins, but had 3/4 of a boxful left over. Now raisins are not something I eat or use much, so I decided to try making the no-bake choc cherry slice on the back of the packet, just to use some of them up.

I fudged it a bit as I used different biscuits and changed the quantities slightly, so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out – but the verdict was fantastic! It was a huge hit at work for morning and disappeared mightily fast!

I made the slice the night before, as the recipe said to leave it to set before spreading with the melted chocolate topping; however I’ve written it below as I will do in future, which is to put the topping on straight away. This is because when I cut the slice up the icing had not properly ‘melded’ with the base, and tended to crack a bit.

Crunchy Choc Raisin Slice

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup walnuts

250 gm pkt Granita biscuits

1/3 cup glacé cherries, cut in half

90 gms butter

370 gms condensed  milk (not quite all of a tin)

300 gms dark cooking chocolate

1 tsp butter, extra

Crush biscuits in a food processor until finely crumbed. Add the walnuts for the last few seconds of processing.

In a microwave-proof bowl, melt the butter, condensed milk and 150 gms of the chocolate, stirring frequently until smooth.

Add the biscuit mixture, raisins and cherries to the chocolate mixture and mix well.

Place in a lined slice tray (28cm x 18cm).

Melt the remaining chocolate and extra butter, in the microwave until smooth, and spread evenly over the top of the slice.

Refrigerate for a few hours, then cut into squares to serve, and stuff your face!

Happy Summer Fooding!

Thai Red Curry Prawns

I’ve had a bit of a meat-free phase recently – kind of a post-Christmas detox, only not really as I haven’t given up wine haha. I just sometimes feel my body needs more vegies, and I firmly believe in listening to what your body tells you.

I am eating lots of fish and prawns, and am also eating a lot of spices at the moment, no idea why. There are many versions of red and green Thai curries around, so I made up my own prawn dish using the elements I liked from several dishes. The result was quite good, medium hot and not too complicated to make.

The prawns I bought were quite small – I should have bought the giant king prawns and shelled them myself, but I just couldn’t face the messiness of peeling/deveining them myself . You just have to be in the right mood for that, so I cheated and bought smaller prawns, already peeled with the tails left on. Of course they shrink when cooked as well, so ended up quite small. Instead of cooking rice or noodles to go with it, I decided to have Thai fajitas! Prawns wrapped in tortillas with a little yoghurt instead of guacomole – yum!

Thai Red Curry Prawns

2 tbsp olive oil

500 gms prawns, tails left on, peeled/deveined

1 brown onion, cut into wedges

1 small carrot, peeled & thinly sliced

1 tbsp freshly grated ginger

2 tbsp red curry paste

400 mls coconut milk (I use low-fat)

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 kaffir lime leaves

1 cup fresh basil leaves

100 gms baby spinach leaves

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a wok or saucepan; add prawns and toss for 1 minute or until starting to change colour. Set prawns aside.

Heat remaining oil, and saute onion, carrot and ginger for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Add red curry paste and stir to coat, for 1 minute.

Add coconut milk, fish sauce, brown sugar and kaffir lime leaves. Bring to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

Return the prawns to the wok along with the basil and baby spinach, and simmer for 2 more minutes.

Serves 2-4 depending on what other things you have with it.

Happy Summer Fooding!

Mild Thai Vegies

It is really, really hot here at this time of year. I love it, as I hate the cold, but many are not happy right now. Over Christmas we had about 10 days in a row of 37-42C with no relief, and even night minimums only getting down to 23-27C.

Finally a minor cool change came through on New Year’s Day, and since then it hasn’t been too bad, but even with a bit of a cool breeze, it is still way too hot inside my tiny place to think about using the oven much. The aircon is very inefficient and there is no insulation, making it freezing in Winter and stinking hot in Summer!

On New Year’s Day, when I was in post-Hawaiian-party recovery mode and pretty much doing nothing all day, I wanted to make a healthy vegie dish to go with my crumbed salmon (which I did in the microwave rather than the oven). I also needed to make do with whatever was in the fridge, as the shops were not open and I had not yet fully re-stocked from being away for 2 weeks.

I made up this curried veg dish – Massaman curry paste is very mild, so this is not a spicy dish at all, and you could use whatever vegies you like.

Massaman Thai Vegies

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, cut into wedges

2 cloves garlic, sliced

2 tbsp Massaman curry paste

400 mls coconut milk (low-fat)

400 mls tinned, diced tomatoes

7 baby potatoes, cut into quarters

2 small carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 red capsicum, sliced

kernels of 1 corn cob

2 tbsp fresh basil, torn

2 tbsp fresh mint, torn

Heat olive oil in large saucepan, and saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes. Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add coconut milk, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Add capsicum, corn kernels, basil and mint, and simmer for a further 10 minutes or until potato/carrot is tender, stirring occasionally.

Serves 4

Happy hot weather fooding!

Caramello Slice

Gooey! That’s the only word to describe this rich, caramel slice. As with the M&M slice, this is from the 4 Ingredients: Kids cookbook, and is no-bake and super simple.

I made this to take to work, as at home there is no one to eat up all the sweet stuff. It was VERY sticky underneath, so I think next time I’ll sprinkle some extra coconut on to the base of the slice container, to make it not stick to the bottom. It was, however, very popular and was all eaten by the end of the day, despite the sticky fingers!

I did some searching and found that there are a few variations of this slice around, including a variation using peppermint chocolate instead of caramel. I also found slightly different quantities, which might make a difference to the stickiness.

I think my colleagues are going to have to be guinea pigs again next week – I don’t think they’ll complain…..

Caramello Slice

250 gm block Caramello chocolate

1/2 cup butter

200 gms Marie biscuits, coarsely broken

1/2 x 400 gm tin sweetened condensed milk

Melt chocolate and butter in microwave; stir in condensed milk and biscuits.

Press into slice container/tin (I use a Tupperware Slice N Stor) and sprinkle with coconut. Place in fridge to set.

Cut into 24 pieces.

Happy Fooding!

M&M Bars (Sort Of)

How about this for a slice so easy your kids could make it in a flash! This was in a magazine recently, promoting the 4 Ingredients Kids cookbook, and in fact only has 3 ingredients. It is quite sweet to taste, so for most of us one piece would be enough (I say MOST lol).

I prefer Smarties to M&Ms so I used those instead. You could use peanut M&Ms if you prefer, and I reckon you could easily add some chopped walnuts, almonds, raisins or coconut, or top the slice with melted chocolate. Using Malt-O-Milk biscuits would be good too.

Start with these basic 3 things and then experiment. You don’t have to be a kid to like quick and easy baking!

You can find this recipe and a heap of other 4 ingredient recipes here.

M&M Bars

250 gm pkt plain sweet biscuits (ie Marie, Arrowroot)

400 gm can condensed milk

1 cup M&Ms or Smarties

Preheat oven to 160C. Line a 16 x 26cm baking tray with baking paper.

Blend the biscuits to a fine crumb, in food processor. Add remaining ingredients and combine well.

Scrape the mixture into the baking pan and bake for 20 minutes.

Cool, then cut into bars to serve.

Happy Fooding!

What To Do With A Ginormous Cabbage….

My lovely neighbour gave me a HUGE half cabbage the other week, after a visit to a local vegie market (along with some very juicy fresh lemons, carrots and roma tomatoes – lucky me). It sat in the fridge for a week and then started to go brown along the cut edge, so I knew I needed to do something with it without further delay.

After doing a bit of searching for something different, I ended up making this Scalloped Cabbage recipe from author Cherie Stihler‘s cabbage recipe pages.

I followed the recipe exactly, estimating the cabbage quantity as 1/3 of a large one (which could be more than a 10-ounce package I suspect but it worked out fine), and I used a large oval ovenproof dish with lid. It turned out very well and tasted great, quite oniony and creamy – although as you can tell from the pics, the dish REALLY got disgustingly dirty – thank goodness Robert Gordon pottery is so easy to scrub and always comes perfectly clean. I love that stuff so much.

This dish made enough for about 6 I reckon – so lots of leftovers for me, plus I still only used half of the half a cabbage – it really was that big! I made a bowl of coleslaw today for my lunch, and still have a bit of cabbage left!

Happy Fooding!

Finally…..Celeriac

(sorry for the blurred pic)

Since March when I tried pureed celeriac at a French restaurant, I’ve been really keen to have a go at cooking some myself. This week, my chance came, as finally I found some in my local supermarket.

Now this is a truly ugly looking vegetable! I expected the skin to be very difficult to cut off, sort of like cutting pumpkin skin, but it was actually super easy. The vaguely celery-like, peppery scent came out as soon as I cut it up – a lovely smell to inhale.

I just simmered and mashed the celeriac, as my son (who works part-time as a bar waiter at said French restaurant) told me how to, and it was delightful to taste and simple to cook. I must buy some more before they disappear from the shops – we don’t tend to get some cold season vegetables much here, due to the short and relatively mild Winter (which btw is still WAY too cold for me – I’m really suffering at the moment).

Mashed Celeriac

1 whole celeriac

milk

1/4 tsp vegetable stock powder

cracked pepper, to taste

Peel the celeriac with a knife and chop into 2cm pieces. Place in a small saucepan and just cover with milk. Add stock powder, bring to a boil then turn down heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes or until celeriac is tender.

Drain most of the milk but keep a little in the pan. Mash the celeriac (use a hand held blender if you want it really smoothly pureed) with cracked pepper.

Serves 2

Happy Fooding!

Disappointing….

Recently in the Coles junk mail (since I moved I am finally getting junk mail in my letterbox again – yay!) was one of their “feed your family for under $10” recipes that looked pretty good – Lamb, Cauliflower & Coconut Curry – so I tried it. I don’t believe the under $10 rubbish – the recipes are supposed to use in-season products so that the prices are good, but I don’t call $5.65 for a cauliflower a means to a low budget dinner! Just the cauliflower and the mince came to almost $10 for a start.

Anyway, in theory it should have been lovely and tasty – loads of spices, garlic, ginger etc, but really it wasn’t up to much. Lacking in flavour I thought. Maybe they like things to be child-friendly ie no really strong flavours. Certainly it was quite easy – simple enough to make after a 7 hour work shift, – I wouldn’t bother with too much complication at the end of a work day when there’s only myself to cook for.

Oh well, it filled the spot, as they say, but I won’t make it again. Or if I do, I’ll really add some hot chillies to pep it up a lot!

Happy Fooding!