Chicken Mushroom Pot Pies and TV Personalities

Bear with me as I ramble a little here, I've got a couple things related to this recipe to write about.  First, I am a huge lover of food television and would say that is primarily what our DVR gets used for, recording food shows.  Well, that and Nick Jr.  I really got into watching cooking shows a couple years ago when Camo was a baby, I mean, what else is there to do at three in the morning when you're feeding an infant?  More often than not I would watch Nigella Lawson because she is so engaging and you can tell that she really, really loves food.  I think it's really funny how she is always sneaking back to the kitchen at the end of episode to get a midnight snack of whatever she just made.  I've never understood the whole midnight snack thing, who wants a full stomach in the middle of the night?  And as anyone who knows me well can tell you, I do not love cold food.  BUT, it's amusing to watch someone else do it I guess.

Anyway, I was visiting nigella.com the other day and saw that there was a cook-along and what's more, the recipe for April was something that looked and sounded really tasty.  I know by the time you're reading this it's probably May, so it's kind of too late for you to join the cook-along.  Although from what I can tell, there really isn't any sort of link-up for this cook-along, it's just cooking a recipe and leaving a comment.  If the recipes continue to be delicious then I'll keep doing it every month, but a little earlier so you can join in.

Back to the actual recipe, which you can find here.  Nigella's recipe includes bacon, only makes two, and is written in "British" so I took out the bacon (I'm a little bacon-ed out, if you can imagine that), increased some of the ingredients and changed the wording so it's American-friendly and makes more servings.

 

The second thing I wanted to bring up is regarding quality of ingredients.  If you watch any Barefoot Contessa, you know that Ina is constantly saying to use "good" ingredients (good mayonnaise, good mustard, etc.) and that always struck me as a little obvious.  Who out there is buying not-good mayonnaise?  But for some ingredients, I have realized, this advice does apply and one of those is chicken stock.  I used to buy low-sodium, fat-free chicken stock because it's healthy (right?) and then I started reading the nutrition facts a little closer.

There are a couple brands of stock (Kitchen Basics is my very favorite) that are heads above the rest--they have the same amount of sodium as low-sodium broth, are naturally fat-free (as stock should be), they contain protein which indicates actual bones cooked to make the broth, the color is a deep caramel instead of pale yellow, and they don't contain MSG or yeast extracts to add flavor that should be there naturally.  As you might guess, these stocks are also more expensive, but for me the extra expense is worth it.  I make a lot of things from scratch, so this is one thing I'm okay with letting someone do for me, especially because there is homemade-quality stock out there.

Lastly, I've started seeing boneless "drums" in the store lately.  This seems like a great idea, who doesn't love chicken drumsticks?  Well, trust me to have made the mistake for you, don't buy boneless drums.  Chicken legs have about six hundred tendons in them and the only way to get them out is by cutting your piece of chicken into little shreds or using a pair of pliers.  No really, I read somewhere recently that using pliers to remove tendons is a great idea.  Somehow the tendons aren't annoying when eating the meat right off the bone, but they are annoying coming out of a pot pie.  Believe me on this one.

For a printer-friendly version of the recipe, just click on the recipe below to download.  Downloads are are hobby room subscribers, so if you haven't subscribed, please do before you get the recipe.

What's your favorite short-cut ingredient?  What's your favorite cooking show?

Technique of the Week: Beanbag Snakes

Thanks to LEGO Ninjago, snakes are having a bit of a moment at our house right now.  As we were inexplicably low on snakes (crazy, right?), I agreed to make some.  As I got started on the project, the Mister asked if I was doing a blog post and I answered, "Of course not, no one wants to make their own Great Devourer."  Then I realized that I was basically making a large beanbag and that is a skill that people could use.  Unless you want to make a Great Devourer and then the directions are the same.

Other than making a bunch of small beanbags for kids to throw at each other things targets, which really is a good idea, kids love beanbags, what else can you do with a beanbag?

• If you have doors with gaps at the bottom, a long beanbag is what you need to block the drafts.
• A rectangular beanbag can be heated in the microwave and used as a heat pack.
• A U-shaped beanbag filled with stuffing is the same as a travel/neck pillow.
• And of course, a really large beanbag with stuffing is a basic throw pillow.

I think you get the idea: sewing fabric together and filling it with something is useful in a lot of situations. And it's really easy.   But what if you don't have a sewing machine?  And you don't want to go to the effort of sewing my hand with a needle and thread?  (I don't blame you on that one.)  You know what's coming, I think you should get a sewing machine.  It comes in handy in A LOT of situations.  And you can get a basic machine for about $60, so you don't need to spend a lot to be able to make tons of different things.

Okay, back to the project.  Get yourself some fabric, thread and scissors.

1. Put the right side of the fabrics together.  This means that the wrong side (read: ugly side) of the fabric is what you see.

2.  Sew a shape on the fabric.  I sewed a snake-ish shape here, but any shape works.  Here's the key: don't sew ALL the way around, leave a 2-3 inch opening.

3.  Trim the excess fabric, leaving about 1/2 inch of fabric outside the seam.  Zig zag around the fabric to prevent fraying, again leaving the opening, well, open.

4.  Turn the beanbag right side out.

5.  Fill the beanbag.

6.  Fold the fabric at the opening inward to match the sewn edges and sew across the opening close to the edge.

That's all.  Pretty easy, right?  Soon you too can have a houseful of little Pythors.  Or neck pillows.  

What's one thing you've made because someone puppy-dog-eyed you?

Your photos just got rad. Part II.

If you take pictures and spend any time on the internet, I'm sure you are aware of Picmonkey.  If not, let me turn you on to a fantastic photo editing program that is entirely web-based and easy to use and free.  Well, let me specify, currently all the features on Picmonkey are free, but there are several "royale" features, marked with a crown, that will be part of the paid service down the road.

I originally posted about Picmonkey here and since then the team has been hard at work adding lots of other effects and features to make your photos rad.  I'm back to show you another round of features that I love.  Today we're going to focus on frames and overlays.

This is the original photo, untouched.  And too "hot" in color.

Here is a brand new feature and possibly my most favorite to-date.  White balance in photos is a huge deal and there are not many ways to fix lighting issues that don't involve Photoshop.  Enter Neutral Picker.  Just click the button, then put your cursor over a gray or white part of the photo and the rest of the colors are adjusted accordingly.  Check out the difference between the original and the white balanced photo.  Much better, right?  The Auto Adjust button right above it did not produce the same result and never does in Photoshop, either.

For you Instagram fans, you can get a film edge frame on your photos and there are six different options to choose from, so it doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's. 

This is the Daguerreotype Frame, which adds an old-timey sepia look to the photo.  Did you know, daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process, invented in France?  Now you know.

From the Textures section is this Weave overlay.  Burlap is popular in crafts right now, so this adds a burlap feel to photos.  Kind of interesting, but maybe not as good for live subjects?  Thoughts?

Okay, here is an overlay and text example together.  There is a HUGE overlays (read: stickers) section and on top of that is a feature that allows you to upload your own overlay, so I could have pasted a recipe card or other image from my computer somewhere on this photo.  I can think of several situations recently that I've wanted to be able to put an image I already had on top of an image I was editing.

 Here's more text on top of two overlays: the wrinkled paper and pushpin are two separate items.

There are many other features to show you and I do plan to do a couple more posts to show you more favorites.  In the meantime, I would recommend that you upload a photo and spend some time playing around with Picmonkey and see what you come up with, there's a lot to discover.

Thai Chicken Soup

It is said that a good chef should know how to dress a salad, make a pie crust, and roast a chicken and how a chef does each of these can tell you a great deal about their cooking style.  Well, I can simply and deliciously dress a salad and make a flaky, buttery pie crust, but I am here to confess today that I have no idea how to roast a chicken.  I've never even tried.

Oh, I can do individual pieces of chicken and have even done some fabulous Italian brick chicken on the grill, but a whole bird cooked in the oven?  That is way beyond me.  I think part of it is that I just don't see how it could turn out juicy and delicious all the way through.  If at this point you're thinking to yourself, "Oh Jody, there IS a way to roast a whole chicken that is juicy and delicious and what you need to do is blah, blah, blah" I want you to convert that "blah, blah, blah" into easy instructions and e-mail them to me.  Seriously.

 

The other reason I have never tried to roast a chicken is because I can just drive down to Costco and buy one hot off the rotisserie for $5 and it is juicy and delicious.  It is also probably full of an obscene amount of salt, but that is necessary for the juiciness and deliciousness, right?  Okay, maybe you can achieve juicy and delicious without saline solution and a syringe.  Again, if you know how to do this, e-mail me.

But salt concerns aside, the boys love Costco chicken and as it is not breaded or fried, I am more than willing to give them the heaps that they greedily stuff in their faces.  What I like to do with Costco chicken is put it in soup.  I've been on kind of a Thai food kick lately, so we've had this soup what seems like a dozen times in the last couple weeks.  Although it looks like a creamy soup, that's just the color after the addition of some coconut milk.  It's actually a pretty brothy soup and it's full of vegetables and protein from the chicken and a little peanut butter, so it makes a healthy and filling meal.

To get an easier-to-print copy of the recipe, click the recipe image to download.  Recipes are for hobby room subscribers, so please sign-up before you download.

Have you mastered those three chef skills?  Which one do you do the best?

Filigree Earring Ideas and a Giveaway

I bought some filigree earrings from Pick Your Plum a couple months ago and have been staring at them since they arrived in the mail.  I haven't been able to figure out what to do with them.  I know that I could just do the obvious and wear them as earrings, but I thought that I could do something extra, something special with them.  I've had "filigree earrings" on my blog to-do list for a while now and finally decided to get it done so I could move on.

Here's what I started with: two round filigree pieces and two diamond-shaped filigree pieces and the earring wires.  And now here's what I came up with.

Here's the diamond shape as an earring.  It's pretty big and almost the same color as my hair if you're having trouble finding it.  Maybe this would look good painted?

Here are two different necklace choices.  It's a very delicate piece, so it really needs to hang from a very thin chain or piece of thin ribbon.  I see baker's twine everywhere, but not usually with jewelry.  I really don't thing it's going to catch on . . .  

Imagine a row of these cute mini terracotta pots in your window sill with some herbs.

This bookmark is more fun with the filigree on it and the same idea could be translated to greeting cards or even a cute key chain.

I'm still not so sure about those, so if you've got some ideas, I want to hear them.

And because I was thinking ahead, I figured that a couple of you might like some of these pretty earrings, too.  I got two extra pairs to give away and all you have to do to win is fill out the Rafflecopter form down below.  The fine print: you must be at least 18 years old and a U.S. resident to enter.

So what's your vote?  What do you think I should do with the earrings?  What would you do with the earrings?


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homemade Goat Cheese

Last summer my mom and I took a cheese making class at a Seattle home brew supply store.  We took a quick field trip to downtown Seattle first to stock up on spices and get dinner, then headed for what ended up being a shady-looking cinder block building.  If we hadn't been high on the metropolitan farm-y feel of Pike Place Market, Penzey's, and Beecher's Cheese, maybe we wouldn't have been expecting a stainless steel and subway tile teaching kitchen with pots of herbs in swing-out window sills.  It was a nice enough place once we got inside and the class itself more than made up for the location.

Before we started, everyone went around and gave their names and said why they were interested in cheese and cheese making.  There was a guy way in the back who was there to learn about making non-traditional milks into cheese.  He had a baby at home who was lactose intolerant, which he and his wife discovered after she had pumped a freezer-full of breast milk that she had been consuming dairy during the production of.  Rather than toss the milk, you guessed it, he wanted to make cheese out of it.  Breast milk cheese.  Yeah.

Anywaaaaay . . . Since the class I've made fresh mozzarella a couple times, but I haven't made anything else.  I've had several packets of chevre starter in the freezer for a number of months now and I finally decided to use it.  There are only about four steps to making goat cheese, it's a pretty simple fresh cheese.  The hardest part it tracking down some goat milk.  The local food co-op stocks goat milk, but it's expensive.  As in, $16 per gallon expensive.

The other thing you need is something to curdle and set the milk.  You could use a combination of rennet and cheese cultures or you could just buy the chevre starter packets sold by the New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. that already have the culture and rennet mixed in the right amounts.  You can get five packets, plus shipping, for about $8 and one packet sets on gallon of milk, so that's a lot of chevre.  Alternatively, New England Cheesemaking sells supplies at a lot of home brew supply stores, so there's probably one in your area and you could just buy the starter there.

The other specialty "supply" you need is chevre molds.  You can get these online from New England Cheesemaking as well, but I'm here to tell you that you don't really need to.  I saved some yogurt containers and poked holes in them with a candle-heated nail.  You're going to want to use an oven glove to do that and make sure to poke from the inside so there aren't any plastic lumps to scrape up your cheese as you unmold it.  I also have a couple ceramic berry baskets that I lined with cheesecloth (these ended-up being the ones I liked the best).  Actual (plastic) berry or tomato containers from the grocery store would also work great.

So here's what you need to do:

1. Sterilize your equipment.  (Yes, we're adding bacteria to milk, but we want to be in charge of the which bacteria are there.  Salmonella does not make good artisan cheese.  Just saying.)
2. Heat the milk.
3. Add the culture.
4. Let the milk ripen.
5. Salt and mold the curds, let drain.
6. Eat the curds (which are now cheese!).

Here's the recipe you can download that has a little lot more explanation than that list above.  As usual, click the recipe image to download and please, recipes are for hobby room subscribers, so please sign-up before you download if you haven't already.  Thanks!

You may not have been around at Christmas when I was talking about my cheese press (my mom made me this gorgeous wooden cheese press for Christmas), but the day that I will first use it is looming large in the horizon.  My shipment of cheese cultures arrived the other day, so homemade Parmesan is just around the corner.  If you could make any cheese you wanted, what would it be?

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