Chicken Pot Pie

Okay, as it was pointed out, some things I put on here are lacking sugar. So, I might have to do a title change. Cause sometimes I eat real food too. Like Chicken Pot Pie! Mmmm....

This is my momma's recipe: This makes on 8x8 pan

1/3 c. margarine
1/3 c. flour
1/3 c. chopped onion
1/3 c. chopped celery
1/4 t. pepper
1/8 t. thyme
1/2 t. salt
2 c. chicken broth (or one can)
2 c. cut chicken
1/2 c. carrots, par-boiled
1/2 c. frozen peas (or if you don't have them like me, use green beans)

Melt butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Add onion and celery, and cook until tender. Whisk in flour. Slowly stir in the chicken broth. Cook until thickened. Stir in salt, pepper, and thyme. Then, stir in carrots and chicken. Pour mixture over the pie crust. (Or if you just want crust on the top, pour into a greased pan) Top with frozen peas. Lay crust over the top. Vent with a few slits or a cookie cutter design. Bake 450 degrees for 20-25 min. Until crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.

I didn't really think about taking pictures until the final step when I realized that I had created a masterpiece. (Well, not really, but this is more intense than the usual day to day meal.)

Roll out the bottom, put in the yummy filling, top with peas/green beans, and then top with crust

Fold the edges together and make them as pretty as you can.

Ain't that pretty? Well, except for where I tore the crust. Oops! Wait... something is missing...

That's better, we need some vents! You can use a cookie cutter and put a cute shape in the center if you want. Be sure to do that after you roll out the dough.

Bake for 20-25 min. Until your desired "goldness."

Beware!!! This stuff is highly addicting! Its a good thing that it takes forever to make because I would eat it EVERY DAY! lol!

My mom's pie crust recipe?

Its a recipe used for Apple Turnovers, so it makes a lot (A LOT) of crust. You can half it if you dare. That's what I did, but you have to sorta use half of an egg. So, its tricky, and not an exact science.

Here is the full recipe (makes a really thick top and bottom crust. Almost too thick. Paula Deen style. haha...)

2- 1/2 c. flour
1 t. salt
1 c. shortening
1 T. vinegar
1 egg
1/4 c. cold water

Mix your flour and salt. Cut in the shortening using a pastry blender, until coarse crumbs. Whisk the egg, vinegar and water together. Add to the flour/shortening mixture. Do not over mix. (We like chunks of shortening. Keeps things flakey.)

If you half it, mix 1- 1/4 c. flour, and 1/2 t. salt. Cut in 1/2 c. shortening. Whisk together 1 egg, 1/4 c. water and 1 T. vinegar. Only pour in half of the mixture. (Exact I know) I actually spilled half on the counter, so I used what was left over. :(

This is a forgiving recipe. Mine turned out. haha... so good luck!

What happens when you run out of bread?

You make TORTILLAS! Well, only if you run out of bread, AND your husband took the car with the car seat to work with him because his car is out of gas. Yep... story of my life. Any way, I used this recipe, which was not too shabby. I think I prefer a whole wheat tortilla. I have a good recipe for those, I just couldn't find it.

I only made half of the recipe. The dough was pretty easy to work with. I've learned the secret to getting a soft dough, and that is the boiling water. (Thank you Sparklett's dispenser for giving me hot and cold water any time of the day. So convenient.)

Just roll it out however you like it

Cook one side till little bubbles come up

Flip it, and brown the other side.

And be sure to take good care of your tortillas. They will dry out and harden. I revived a few hard ones today by brushing them with water and putting them in the microwave. It's just not the same though.

I frosted a cake!

For Jim's birthday, Kristy had a delicious spice bunt cake that she asked me to frost. So, I made up some cream cheese frosting. I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cook book. The recipe ended up tweaked, because it didn't call for any milk. (Weird, huh?) So it was...

1/3 cup of cream cheese (from the tub)
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 cup of powdered sugar

I put it all in the bowl, and used a hand mixer to try and whip it a little. It had a really strong cream cheese/vanilla flavor because I wasn't able to use all of the powdered sugar. This will make only enough frosting for the top of a cake.

When it came time to frost, I busted out a cake spatula and went to town. This is what happened.... I'm not going to lie, I was really excited about what happened...

Candy Corn Bark

I made it! I did! I didn't follow the recipe exactly, because I didn't have any oreos. They didn't have Halloween oreos at WinCo and I didn't really make any effort to find them after that! But candy corn bark tastes great without the oreos. But, if you can find them, go ahead and splurge. I'm sure it would taste UH-mazing. :)

So what did I use? I used raisins, pretzels, white bark, and candy corn. Pretty simple stuff.

So, first thing, is getting the pretzels and the raisins in the pan. Break the pretzels in half.

The directions say to "lightly grease the pan." I don't know if that helps. You'll see why. :)

Next, melt you bark in the microwave. I didn't really think it would take 1 1/2lbs, so I started small. I didn't have enough to cover the whole pan, so I did half at a time. I used almost a whole package of almond bark. (Minus one block, which I should have just added.)

Top it off with candy corn!

When it has set up, you need to somehow get this brick out of the pan. If you poke at the edges, it will just fall apart. So much for "lightly greasing" the pan. My brilliant mind decided to just flip over the pan and start banging. It came out in two chunks. (Since each half was separately done anyway.)

There will be casualties. You know what to do. Mmm...

Break it all up into pieces. I didn't try to cut them or do anything fancy. Just broke it into pieces. And I will make a note here. Push the candy corn into the chocolate pretty well. If you don't, then it will just fall off as you are breaking it apart.

Ta-Dah! Oh, and it tastes good too!

Ben had a birthday shout hooray!

For Ben's birthday, I decided at the last minute to make him an ice cream pie. There was one that he just LOVED from G's Dairy Delights in Rexburg. I knew that nothing could replace it, but I thought I would give it a try. They use their grasshopper ice cream that is mint ice cream with caramel, oreos, and chocolate chips. So, I bought Dreyer's Mint Cookie Crunch ice cream, and here is how I made it. I took an oreo crust, and added a layer of hot fudge on the bottom. I filled it halfway with the oreo ice cream, and topped that with mini chocolate chips, and caramel. I then added the rest of the ice cream, and topped it all off with some mint oreos, and a "Happy Birthday Ben" in fudge.

This is my only warning: THIS PIE TAKES TIME! I didn't even think about that. There is a lot of freezing involved, and if you get impatient, then you end up with a less than perfect pie. I wrote Happy Birthday before the ice cream was frozen solid, and the fudge went everywhere because it was too melty. So be careful!

Here is how it turned out...

I don't know why, but it won't upload straight. This is unusual. Just turn your head. :)

Add lots of fudge everywhere if you dare!

See the melty words? I wasn't too excited. No rushing!

Do you want to know the coolest thing? The Dreyer's website tells you which stores are carrying your favorite flavor. Just type in your zip code and it will bring up the nearby grocery stores. Now that is AWESOME!