Creative Cooking

Hello, friends! With everything going on with COVID-19, we have been carefully budgeting in our household and something that we have been really appreciative of is free breakfasts/lunches from the school. The only challenge is that sometimes there are certain foods that the little ones don’t enjoy. We don’t like wasting food so I have been pretty creative with making those foods into family dinners.

My last such meal was a success, so my girlfriend said I should blog about it! I made a Chicken Shepherd’s Pot Pie from almost completely all leftover school ingredients. Here goes!

Chicken Shepherd’s Pot Pie

Chicken Shepherd’s Pot Pie

Servings 6; Prep time: 15 min, Cook Time: 30 min

Ingredients:
Baby carrots (steam first if you don’t want them crunchy)
Peas
Corn
Chicken patties/nuggets (cut into bite-size pieces)
Cooked potatoes wedges
2 cups shredded cheese
3 tbsp butter
2 cups milk
3 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp thyme
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. Put carrots, peas, corn, and cut up chicken in a pie plate or a 9×9 baking dish. Put butter in a skillet and melt on medium heat. Add flour and whisk until combined. Slowly add the milk, continuing to whisk. Add spices and bring to a boil, stirring to keep from sticking. Cook for 1-2 minutes, or until thickened. Add to chicken/veggie mixture and stir well. Add potato wedges on top so it covers the best you can (you can also use mashed potatoes). Sprinkle cheese on top. Cook for 25-30 minutes. Let sit for 15 min before serving.

Have you exercised your creativity in cooking this pandemic? If so, feel free to share recipes below! I hope you enjoy it! If you try it out, let me know what you think!

Gluten-Free Chicken Pot Pie

So, this weekend I attempted a gluten-free chicken pot pie, and it turned out amazing, so I thought I’d share the recipe with my online friends! I’m going to tell you everything I did, including the things I did wrong… 

 

Gluten-Free Teff Flour Pie Crust (makes one crust)

1 cup of gluten-free teff flour

1/4 cup chestnut flour

2/3 cup coconut oil

2 tbsp raw cane sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg mixed with 1/2 cup water (but only use 1/3 of the mix)

 

1. Combine flour, coconut oil, sugar, and salt. Blend with fingers until crumbly.

2. In other bowl, mix egg with water (only use 1/3 of it). Then blend it into flour and make into a ball.

3. Chill in fridge until ready to use.

4. Roll out into a crust.

 

Chicken Pot Pie (makes one pie)

1 small hen/chicken, whole

Carrots, sliced

1/2 can pigeon peas (gandules)

Potatoes, chopped

Two small onions, diced

Dried shittake mushrooms

Garlic salt

Pepper

Rosemary

Thyme

Sage

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup onion, diced

1/3 cup chestnut flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp celery seed

1 3/4 cup broth

2/3 cup raw milk

1 teff pie crust

 

1. In stock pot, put chicken, veggies (but not the peas), herbs, garlic salt, and pepper and cover with water, like making a soup (in fact, I later made a soup with the leftovers). Cook for two hours.

2. In saucepan on medium, cook onions in butter with salt, pepper, and celery seed until onions are soft and translucent. Stir in chestnut flour. Add chicken broth from your soup. Add milk. Simmer until thick.

3. Scoop out veggies from the chicken soup and add in a bowl with pigeon peas. Shred the chicken (I left the skin for my doggie, Oso, and returned the legs and wings to the soup, added water, and kept cooking it another hour or two, so now I have soup, too!). Mix together the chicken with the veggies and scoop it into a pie plate.

4. Cover the chicken/veggie mix with the simmered sauce, set aside a bit of it. Heat oven to 400 F.

5. Place the teff crust on top, making sure to leave slits so it can bubble. Stick the pie plate on a baking dish and put in the oven for five minutes. Take out and pour rest of sauce on top (but don’t let it overflow).

6. Cook for 30 minutes at 400 F. Take out of oven and let sit for at least 10 minutes before eating. (Technically it also set at 200 F in my friend’s oven for another half hour before we ate it.)

Unfortunately, because it was such a great hit and it was devoured, I have no pictures. Therefore, I leave you with this picture…