French Canadian Meat Pie

Here's a good hearty recipe that will keep you full and warm for quite a while...it makes two pies! We apparently forgot to take any pictures this time...oops...which is surprising because I'm pretty sure we were eating this for at least a week.

Meat Pie

1 lb ground beef
3/4 lb ground pork
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 celery ribs
2 garlic cloves
6 cups hot mashed potatoes
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp crushed dried rosemary
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp marjoram
salt & pepper
pastry for two double crust pies.

The first thing I did was to prepare a whack of potatoes and boil them to make the mashed potatoes. How many make 6 cups? I dunno - guess; I did! I did use more than six potatoes. Boil until tender, and mash - do NOT add any milk or butter to the mash. You could just as well use instant potatoes, I suppose, but I couldn't figure out how much of that makes 6 cups either, and I'm sure real potatoes taste better.

In a skillet, cook the beef and pork, onions, celery, and garlic until the meat is no longer pink and the veggies are soft. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the potatoes, broth, and dried seasonings. (I didn't have some of these, so I threw in some poultry seasoning instead, which has most of the herbs in it.)

Line your pie pans with whatever kind of a crust you have (I'm not much of a pastry cook yet, so I like to buy the Pillsbury crusts that you unroll.) Fill the pies, top with the second sheets of pastry and seal the edges. (I'm not too great at this either...I fold them over each other and smoosh with a fork.) Cut slits in the top.

Bake at 375F for30-35 minutes until the crusts are golden brown and delicious (little shout out to Good Eats fans ;) My pies actually took quite a bit longer for the crusts to brown for some reason...my oven might not have been hot enough.

Enjoy lots of meat pie, eh?

This recipe was featured in: Taste of Home magazine in Oct. 2001

Pot Pie

Hi all! Happy Inauguration day. No good news here other than that.

Last weekend we decided to cook the turkey we've had in the freezer since Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving II, and it was good. Yesterday I decided to make a pot pie with some leftovers.

Turkey Pot Pie

Bag of Frozen veggies
oil
butter
1 cup onion
1 cup celery
1.5 cups broth
0.5 cups milk
3 tbl flour
salt & pepper
2 cups cooked turkey
1 sheet of puff pastry

Heat your oven to 400F. Toss frozen veggies with a bit of oil and spread on a baking sheet. Roast until brown.

In a saute pan, melt 1 tbl butter, and add the onion and celery. Heat the broth and milk in the microwave while the onion/celery is cooking.




Push the onion mixture to the sides of the pan and add 2 tbl more butter. Let in melt out the water, and then whisk in the flour, mixing with the veggies. It'll be a gluey mass, it's ok. Let that cook a couple of minutes, and then whisk in the hot broth and milk. Let it cook until thickened, but don't let it try to foam out of the pan! (Ooops).




Mix in the roasted veggies and the chicken, and season with salt and pepper. Pour into a casserole dish - I used an 8 x 8 glass dish.

Take out the puff pastry. It does need a little time to soften, but not too much...maybe 5-10 minutes. Try to seal the seams (I wasn't very successful) and roll it out a bit. Prick all over with a fork. (I forgot this step, and my pastry didn't puff a lot). Cut out rounds with a biscuit cutter, or a cookie cutter - make sure to press straight down, and then twist, so you don't smoosh the pastry layers together. Put on top of pot pie! Cook at 350F until the pastry is brown and puffy - it should be about 25 minutes, although mine took maybe 10 minutes longer than that for some reason. Let the pot pie rest for about half an hour, before you cut into it to let it firm up.


It's so good, you'll forget to take a picture until after you've eaten half of it!!

This recipe can be found here: Good Eats Pot Pie.

Moroccan Chickpea Soup

The Indyhermit and I have been a little busy lately. Or just apathetic. You decide!

Since he is a little occupied in keeping food on the table, I've been brought into the blog :) This soup is a recipe I decided to make this week. It has two great things about it: a) it is very cheap and b) the Moroccan flavors really warms you up and bring a little brightness into the winter doldrums. This one will definitely be added into our regular recipe rotation!



Moroccan Chickpea Soup

2 cans of chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 can crushed tomatoes
onion
celery
olive oil
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
4 cups broth
1 cup lentils
2-3 oz orzo
lemon wedges

Chop up the onion and celery, and saute in a large soup pan with olive oil until soft. Add the spices and stir for another 3 minutes or so, until fragrant. Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas (with liquid), lentils, and broth. Simmer for 35 minutes, uncovered. Stir in the orzo and cook as long as the pasta box says, about 10 minutes or so.

Dish it into some colorful bowls and taste. Taste good?

We thought so too. But trust me - get that lemon and squeeze a wedge into your bowl. Taste again. Ooooh yeah. Isn't the difference astounding? The lemon juice really takes this soup from good to INCREDIBLE. Try and see!


This recipe is inspired by the one here: Epicurious.com