Easy as Pie - Chicken that is...

Today's meal is brought to you by a suggestion from the husband. I didn't have anything planned and I asked him for a request. So he threw out Chicken Pot Pie. Uh, okay. A quick search on foodnetwork.com brought up a lot of recipes, all which appeared very difficult and required individual bowls for your pot pies (which I do not own). I finally found an easy chicken pot pie recipe (yes, easy was in the title - lucky me). The husband was not at all pleased that this recipe was all in one skillet, but hey I'm the cook so I can do what I want (insert picture of me sticking my tongue out). I did grant him one request. The recipe does not call for potatoes, but I added them because he loves them. I also didn't add any onions.

Since I'm the master chef that I am, I didn't follow the instructions to a tee. I chopped up my chicken first and then cooked it. I figured it would cook faster that way. I couldn't find Sweet Paprika, there was regular and smoked, but no sweet. So, I seasoned my chicken with poultry seasoning, pepper, and my go to seasoning Slap-Yo-Mama. I fried it up and put it to the side. I cubed one potato and boiled it for about 15 minutes and drained them. I decided I would add the potatoes at the same time I added the chicken to the recipe.

Chicken

Potatoes

Then it was time to cook up the frozen peas and carrots. I cooked those up and added the garlic (Tip: if you ever want to just make it smell like you're cooking up something good, fry up some garlic it made my kitchen smell yummy). I was supposed to sprinkle in the flour and let it dissolve in the "juices", but I didn't have any juices, so I added some water.

Peas, carrots, and flour

I added my chicken stock per the instructions and waited for it to thicken before I added the heavy cream. Does this look like it's thickening?

Chicken Stock added

I waited a while and still no thickness. In a panic, I added some more flour. I failed to sprinkle it in, so I ended up with some nice little flour balls in the mixture. Let's hope those cook out. I went ahead and added the heavy cream hoping that would thicken it, but no such luck. Ah well, on to my crust. I pulled out my store bought crust and then quickly realized that it was going to be a little tough getting it out of the foil pan it comes in. As I pulled it out, it begin to tear and it didn't seem like it was going to cover my entire pan. Uh, what now? Master Chef to the rescue! I balled two crusts together and made them into one. Ahh, perfection... not quite, but this should do.

Crust out of the pan

Ball of Dough!

I'm the next Betty Crocker!



I added my chicken and potatoes to my creamy, but not thick mixture. Now my instructions said I could tuck my excess edges inside the pan. That wasn't happening for me, so extra crust was folded over.

Chicken and potatoes added

Martha Stewart eat your heart out!

Into the oven it went. As I watched it bake, I noticed that some of the filling was spilling out (now I have to clean the oven). I also realized that I left out the last two steps. I didn't cut slits in the crust and I didn't brush the crust with egg wash. My bad. Fifteen minutes later (the recipe says 20, but it looked done to me), we have a Chicken Pot Pie...

Can you see the filling that oozed out?

It's not the prettiest and I have to admit it was a little bland. Apparently, my Slap-Yo-Mama is not as salty as I thought because the pie needed salt. Maybe I shouldn't have used the unsalted chicken stock, but I thought it would be healthy. Next time, I'll have to figure out how to get the filling thicker because it was a little soupy. 

My plating skills need work.

A couple of shakes of salt and everything was all better. So, Chicken Pot Pie + Salt = Success. 



Chicken Empanadas

I know it's been a long time, but it's tough for a lazy bum like myself to keep up with anything. I caught the productivity bug this weekend, got a little writing done and got back to this blog. I found a recipe for Chicken Empanadas when I was cleaning out my junk drawer. I didn't use pie crust, I used these Goya Discos I found at the store. For my chicken, I cut up some chicken tenderloins, seasoned it with some Slap-Yo-Mama, and fried it up. Since the recipe said the chicken should be chopped, I used my little food processor to chop it up.

I mixed up all my ingredients, but had a little trouble with my cream cheese. I didn't let it soften, so the mixture just had these big chunks of cream cheese in it.

It was all easier than I thought. When I filled my discs, I tried to smooth out some of the cream cheese chunks (I didn't want them to be cream cheese empanadas). I think I did a good job of folding up my empanadas.

I was a little worried about baking them because the Goya instructions said to fry them. I watched them as they baked and was a little worried because I could see some of them coming apart. They came out okay, but as my husband kindly pointed out they looked like they had the mumps.

I paired it with black beans and Goya Mexican Rice.

Even though they looked a little scary, everything was yummy. My husband had seconds and so did I. Please excuse the paper plate and plastic fork, but I do hate cleaning dishes and this makes for an easy, breezy clean up. Chicken Empanadas = Success!