Love In My Tummy

I owe you people a food post. Seriously. My hard drive is overflowing with photographic documentation of culinary fabulosity, and I simply haven't had the time to share it with you.

And I certainly haven't got time to share it all now, so today will be a tribute to my new favourite food blog: Our Best Bites.

I found these lovely ladies the other day after following a link to their fabulously inventive Single Serving Pie in a Jar, which you can bet your arse I'll be trying as soon as I have time, and the funds to buy the jars.

In the mean time, I've been salivating over every recipe in their archive, and in the last two days I've tried two of them.

First up... Chicken Pot Pie
(Follow links for the recipes)

Since I am only feeding one person, I decided to make individual serving pies instead of one large pie.  I halved the recipe, which still made enough filling for one slightly larger pie in my new (and utterly beloved) Williams Sonoma soup bowls, and three smaller pies in disposable mini pie tins, perfect for the freezer!

I shredded up a half rotisserie chicken from my grocery store (a bargain at $2.99!) and thawed some frozen mixed veggies by dumping them into a ziplock bag and floating it in hot water in my bathroom sink.  I made Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup, which was admittedly bland when I followed the recipe. It tasted more like flour than anything else, but that may have been the cheap chicken broth stocked by my grocery store. I added about another half cup of broth and a ton of extra seasonings (probably about doubled the amount in the recipe, as well as added some sage and thyme) and that made it better. Will definitely try a different broth next time.

My only deviation from the recipe as written was to add a few cloves of minced garlic when I sauteed the onions in butter.  In my world, garlic would be its own food group.

I threw everything into a bowl (including the diced and boiled red potatoes that I didn't take photos of previously because, hey, they're potatoes), topped with the soup, and mixed it all up.  Easy peasy.

Now, I was going to give a little tutorial on making pie crusts in here, but a.) I'm not exactly a master crust maker, and b.) my camera battery was dying so I had to snap photos quickly and they all came out blurry.  So.  No pie crust tutorial.  I'll just note that I use the trusty recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, substituting butter for half of the shortening.  Works great.

Right. Onward.

I filled the incredibly-awesome-handled-soup-bowl and the three mini pie tins with the pot pie mixture, then topped them each with pie crust.

That's "P," for "Pie."

What can I say?  I like to have fun with my vents :)  These three were each wrapped in plastic wrap, then in foil, and stuck in the freezer for future consumption.

While the "P" pie was in the oven, baking at 400 degrees for approx 45 minutes, I took the little bit of leftover pie crust and performed a little bit of magic that is a Froggy Family Tradition.

Roll out the leftover crust dough, dot with butter, and douse in cinnamon and sugar.

Squeeze together at center and roll up ends.  Sorry about the blurry photo, it was the only one I got of this step.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until you have a sweet-centered, flaky treat!

Now, back to the pie...

Beautiful!  (Seriously, how awesome is that bowl??!)

Nice and golden.  Bon Apetite!

So, you ask... how was it?

Pretty darned good.  It suffered a little from the blandness of the Cream of Chicken soup, but for the most part it was very tasty and hit the spot.  I can't wait to see how the three in the freezer cook up!


And now, the second recipe, which is mercifully (for both of us) not nearly so photo-heavy, as I didn't take any prep photos.


Thai Peanut Noodles

We can add this to the list of Foods I Love That Would Kill My Mother (who is crazy allergic to peanuts, and almost every other legume on the planet). These are mentioned repeatedly throughout posts on the blog, so I thought they had to be worth checking out. They are also fairly cheap (unless your grocery store gouges you on the cost of Udon noodles like mine does) and quick to make.

They are also freaking divinely delicious. I am going to be making these a lot. I can tell.

(There's that bowl again!)

I cannot wait to see what the leftovers taste like cold later tonight. And I wonder why I'm still single.

And there you have it. My show is over and I've been off work for the past three days. Aside from watching almost two complete seasons of Doctor Who (oh David Tennant, I want to marry you), this is how I've spent my time.

On a scale of 1 to Productive... I'd say that counts as an 8.