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!

Recipe for Chilaquiles

I hope you enjoy my recipe for chilaquiles, a traditional Mexican breakfast food.

It took a while for me to get this right. There are as many ways to make chilaquiles as there are people, so feel free to share your favorite chilaquiles recipe! Enjoy!

Chilaquiles

For salsa:

1 large tomato (or 2 medium ones)

1 clove garlic

1/4 onion

1+ peppers (jalapeño, ancho, serrano, or arbol), to spice preference

Salt and pepper

For chilaquiles:

2 tbsp olive oil

10 corn tortillas (ripped into quarter-sized pieces)

1 cup Mozzarella cheese (or quesadilla cheese)

1-2 large hard-crusted Italian breads, cut into 6-inch sandwich sizes

1 can refried beans

 

Put ingredients for salsa (minus salt and pepper) into a dry skillet and cook on medium-high heat, turning so the ingredients do not burn. When tomato begins to soften, toss everything into a blender with enough water to blend (1/2 cup or less). Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a skillet fry up ripped up corn tortillas with 2 tbsp olive oil until they are crispy. Then add salsa in with tortillas and mix. Cook for a minute. Then throw on mozzarella cheese, turn off burner, and cover. Toast good, crusty Italian bread, spread on refried beans, and put chilaquiles in the middle.

Enjoy!!!!!!!!

Throwback Thursday: A Photo and a Recipe

This was taken many a moon ago on one of Julio and my first dates. 🙂 We made a picnic and went up to Shenandoah National Park. We drove up Skyline Drive and hiked down to Dark Hollow Falls, which is amazing, if you’ve never been.

Julio brought a special concoction that I thought would be disgusting, but actually turned out to be delicious! This has been a recurring theme for me…that’s why I know I always need to try something before saying I can’t eat it! 🙂 It is easy to make and fun to eat.

Tostadas de Ensalada de Atún (tuna salad tostadas)

Two cans of tuna in water (drained)

1 can Veg-all (or mixed veggies) – drained

1 can corn – drained

2-4 tbsp pickled jalapeño pepper juice

1/2 cup or so of mayonnaise (Makormick’s with lime is the best!)

Pickled jalapeños, to taste

Valentina (or any picante sauce), to taste

Tostadas (flat, fried corn tortillas) (you can also eat it with saltine crackers)

Mix tuna, veggies, mayo, pepper juice together in a bowl. Laying a tostada flat on your plate, or on the palm of your hand, spoon on the salad and top with Valentina and jalapeños. Enjoy!

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… 

 

 

From Plant to Plate

Well, I have my first harvests! Green beans, peas, and a zucchini!

I’m not a big fan of peas, myself, though being inspired by some of my Puerto Rican clients, I decided to attempt Arroz Con Gandules (i.e. Rice with Peas). I found a bazillion different recipes online and mixed together an assortment of them to come up with this creation!

 

 

It turned out delicious! I cooked it with a side of yucca and some shrimp. In the end, it was so good. Check it out!

 

In case your mouth is watering and would like to make some of your own, here are the recipes.

Oven-Baked Yucca (about 6 servings, time – 60 min)

8 pieces of frozen yucca

1/4 coconut oil

Sea salt, to taste

Boil frozen yucca in water for about 5 minutes, or until soft enough to cut. Slice into long fries. Coat a baking sheet with coconut oil, sprinkle salt. Put yucca on baking sheet and mix around, coating the yucca. Sprinkle more salt, if desired. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Pineapple Shrimp (makes 4 servings, time – 15 min)

1 lb shrimp, cooked and peeled

1-2 tbsp coconut oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 onion, chopped

Pinch paprika, curry powder, and ginger

Salt to taste

1 cup pineapple chunks

2 tbsp sesame seeds

Cook garlic, spices, and onion in the coconut oil. Add shrimp and let fry for a couple minutes. Add pineapple and sesame seeds. Cook another 5 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Arroz con Gandules (makes 12 servings, time – 90 min)

1/2 lb pigeon peas (I just used whatever peas were in my garden…don’t know the variety)

1 large green bell pepper

1 onion

1 bunch cilantro

6 cloves garlic

3 tbsp olive oil

1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce

2 packets Sazon Goya (culantro y achiote)

3 cups rice

Handful green olives, halved

3 pieces bacon, cooked and crumbled

Soak peas in water with salt for 30 min. Meanwhile, blend green pepper, onion, garlic, and cilantro in a food processor until it’s a paste. This is called “sofrito”, it keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks or frozen for 6 months. Boil peas in 6 cups water for 5-10 min. While peas are boiling, heat 6 tbsp of the sofrito in a wok with the olive oil, cook 3-4 min. Pour tomato sauce and goya seasoning in wok and mix. Add the rice and stir until coated. Stir in peas and boiling water (6 cups). Cover wok with foil and put a lid on top. Allow to come to a boil, then cook on low for 45 minutes, not stirring it. After 45 minutes, take off heat and add green olives and bacon. Enjoy!