Life

Today I sent away a sto­ry, pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished, to a pod­cast­ing site in the hopes they’ll want to make it an audio sto­ry. Not sure if they’ll bite — I real­ly don’t know if it’ll trans­late well to the audio for­mat — but noth­ing ven­tured, noth­ing gained.

Then we went over to our friends’ place and made sup­per there. We had planned to make it at home, but they were going to be putting up their Christ­mas tree, so we brought over the ingre­di­ents and used their kitchen instead. Mmmm, home­made chick­en pot pie.

The Recipe:

(from Chate­laine, Feb. 2006)

3 skin­less, bone­less chick­en breasts
1 car­rot, thin­ly sliced
1 red or green pep­per, chopped
1 cel­ery stalk, thin­ly sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
2cups (500 mL) small broc­coli florets
1/2cup (125 mL) frozen peas
veg­etable oil
3tbsp (45 mL) butter
1/4cup (50 mL) all-pur­pose flour
1 1/2cups (375 mL) milk
1tbsp (15 mL) dried thyme leaves or rose­mary or 3 tbsp (45 mL) fine­ly chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
1tsp (5 mL) salt
1/2 397‑g pkg frozen puff pas­try, thawed
1 egg, beaten

1. Pre­heat oven to 400F (200C). Cut chick­en into 1‑inch (2.5‑cm) pieces. Pre­pare veg­eta­bles and mea­sure out peas. Light­ly coat a large fry­ing pan with oil and set over medi­um-high heat. Add chick­en. Stir often until light­ly gold­en, 3 to 4 min­utes. Add car­rot, pep­per, cel­ery and onion. Stir often until onion begins to soft­en, 2 to 3 min­utes. Remove chick­en and veg­eta­bles to a bowl.

2. Return pan to burn­er and reduce heat to medi­um. Add but­ter. When melt­ed, grad­u­al­ly whisk in flour until even­ly mixed and bub­bly, 1 minute. Slow­ly whisk in milk. Whisk until thick­ened, 2 to 3 min­utes. Remove from heat. Add broc­coli, peas, 1 tsp (5 mL) dried or 1 tbsp (15 mL) fresh thyme and salt. Return chick­en and onion mix­ture to pan. Stir to even­ly coat. Mix­ture will be very thick. Turn into an 8‑inch (2‑L) square bak­ing dish or dish that will hold 8 cups (2 L) and place on a rimmed bak­ing sheet.

3. Cut pas­try in half to form two small pieces. To cov­er 8‑inch square dish, on a light­ly floured sur­face roll each piece into a 10-inch (25-cm) square. It’s OK if edges are uneven. Brush one square with egg, then sprin­kle remain­ing 2 tsp (10 mL) dried or 2 tbsp (30 mL) fresh thyme over­top. Cov­er with remain­ing square. Press together.

4. Care­ful­ly pick up pas­try and lay over fill­ing. Tuck in any over­hang­ing edges. Press edges of pas­try onto rim of dish. With a knife tip, pierce mid­dle of pas­try in 3 or 4 places to allow steam to escape. Light­ly brush top with egg. Bake in cen­tre of pre­heat­ed oven until gold­en and fill­ing is bub­bly, 30 to 35 min­utes. Let stand 10 min­utes before serv­ing. Sauce will thick­en as it sits. 

It’s real­ly for­giv­ing — we used almost twice the veg­gies, made a bit more sauce, and put it in a rec­tan­gu­lar casse­role dish, and it was f‑i-n‑e.

Then, after sup­per and tree, we watched the tail end of Home Alone on YTV, and then we came home.