Addictions and Inspirations

  We are addicted to Gordon Ramsey shows.  We can’t help it.  We don’t have cable, but we have Netflix and HuluPlus on our BluRay player (aren’t we cool?), so we have most shows available whenever we want them.  A month or two ago we got addicted to Master Chef.  We picked our favorites and watched episode until we had caught up with when they were airing.  Every Tuesday night we would get home from work and whatever else we were doing that day, look at each other and ask “What should we do tonight?”  The answer was always “Master Chef!”  Not long after we found the greatness of that show, another Gordon Ramsey show was added to the Hulu library: Hells Kitchen.  We started at season 1, episode 1, finishing each season really quickly.  We just started season 5 last night.  
  Watching all the dishes they make, we realized we don’t cook new things very often at all, and don’t know how to make a lot of things they serve.  In my last blog I mentioned I wanted to cook new things and that I was excited about not just cooking the same thing over and over again.  So, over the weekend I pulled out some of the cook books we got for our wedding and looked through them to find some good places to start.  Last night, I made chicken pot pie.  It was so good!  I over cooked the veggies a little, but other than that, it was amazing.  I saw a recipe for a chocolate tart that looked fantastic, and I had left over pie crust dough, so I decided to use it up.  That was one of the best dinners we’ve had!  
 Tonight I’m making a stuffed zucchini recipe I saw a few weeks ago.  I hope it’s as delicious as it sounded.  Being creative and adventurous with our cooking has made not going out to eat pretty easy! We went out once with our pastor and his wife to discuss music stuff, and wen went out for breakfast because we got out of Spanish class really early and we didn’t have any breakfast food at home.  
 Speaking of Spanish, I think that class will go pretty well.  Our teacher is from Brazil and has never taught Spanish before, although she minored in Spanish in college.  I think it will be pretty fun to learn from someone who has never taught it before.  We’ll all learn together.  She seems like a really fun teacher who will do everything she can to make it interesting.  So, I’m not NOT looking forward to it as much as I was. :)
 I know I promised my sourdough recipe, but I still haven’t made more bread since I had SO much left over from the farmers market.  So, if you don’t want to keep feeding your starter until I tell you, you should just put it in the fridge and I’ll get back to you.  I have to tell you about the chicken pot pie I made, because it was just that good. I don’t have any pictures because it’s basically all gone and I forgot to take pictures of the process.  Just imagine it being beautiful.
 To start off, I put two chicken breasts in some water to boil until they were cooked, since the recipe called for 1.5 cups shredded chicken.  Then I made my pie crust.  

Pie Crust
1.5 C flour
½ t Salt
5 T Cold butter
4 T Crisco
3-5 T Cold Water

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, cut in the butter and the crisco until the mixture is grainy. Don’t over mix the dough! If you leave larger chunks of butter/crisco (pea size) you’ll have a flakier crust. Slowly mix in Cold water starting with 3 T. Add more as needed until the dough holds together.  Shape dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and put in the fridge for at least 45 minutes.

Chicken Pot Pie
1 Can Chicken broth
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
½ C White wine
1 Potato, chopped
½ C Chopped Carrots (we used shredded because we had left-overs)
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1 small yellow squash, chopped
1 Small Onion, chopped
2 Cloves of Garlic, minced
½ t Thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pour the wine and about half the can of chicken broth into a skillet and bring to a simmer.  Put each chopped vegetable in the broth to simmer, starting with the thyme, salt, pepper, onion, garlic, potato and carrot as they will take the longest to cook (and you want the flavor of the thyme, garlic, and onion through the whole thing).  When the carrot and potato are getting close to being done, put the broccoli and squash in the skillet and simmer for a few more minutes. Add more chicken broth as needed. You need moisture, but not too much.  Once your veggies are cooked, add your chicken and your cream of chicken soup and stir together.  If you need it to be thicker, you can thicken up with just a little bit of flour.  Pour into a small casserole dish.  I used something similar to this:
Roll out one half of your pie crust dough on a floured surface. Cut out enough dough to go over your dish and about an each down each side.  I used the lid as a guide and cut it an inch bigger than the lid.  Place the dish in your oven and bake at 425 for about 35-45 minutes (until the crust is golden brown).  this will serve 2-4 people, depending on how hungry you all are. It would have served 3 of us.  
 Give it a shot sometime. It didn’t take very long to make and it was insanely delicious!  Enjoy!