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!

Leftover Tamales

So, I don’t have any pics because we ate all the tamales but last week I made some tamales from leftovers in my fridge. They turned out really good, and I ended up making about 20 tamales from one chicken breast, some salsa, and some other simple ingredients. That was like 7-10 servings from one chicken breast. Woot! Saving dinero and making delicious food. 🙂

Recipe: Chicken Tamales with Green Salsa (7-10 servings)

1-2 chicken breast, cooked and shredded

1 jar of green salsa (homemade or canned)

1/2 bag of Maseca (extra if dough too wet)

1 cup of Crisco or lard

3 cups chicken broth (extra if too dry), heated

Salt to taste

20 corn husks, set in warm water for 15 min to soften

1 steamer or tamale pot

 

Mix chicken with salsa on the stove until well cooked. You can add an onion and some olive oil for extra flavor if you like. Set aside.

Mix maseca with lard and chicken broth (or water). Add salt to taste. Mix until no lumps of lard and it is the texture of a wet, spreadable play-doh.

Get corn husks. Take a husk; hold it so the wider part is at the top. Spread a thick layer (1/2 inch) of dough in the middle of the top half. Spoon a spoonful of chicken and salsa into the middle of the dough. Fold one side in over the dough, then the other, and then fold the bottom up. Sit in the steamer with the closed part on the bottom.

Fill all the tamales. Put sufficient amount of water in the steamer or tamale pot. Cover and let water boil. Reduce temperature to medium, so the water is still bubbling. Steam for 2-3 hours, making sure to add water about every 30 min the pot doesn’t burn.

Knowing when they’re done is a bit of a guessing game. I usually cook tamales at night and let them stay in the steamer all night. Then in the morning I eat them for breakfast. But if you want to eat them for dinner, just make sure they’re not undercooked (smushy). Maybe let them sit for a bit.

Every time I make tamales, they turn out a little less horrible. I’m almost in the realm of making them really good now! Don’t despair if it takes you a few attempts to make them correctly. Bad tamales are better than no tamales at all! 🙂

These are tamales from Delgado’s Antojitos Mexicanos. Better than mine but then, that’s their speciality! 🙂