I started a writing project this week, which I am excited/nervous/inspired/scared about.  Who knows what, if anything, will come of it, but I finally have a somewhat solid idea of what I want it to be and I’m trying to run with it.  “Somewhat solid” ideas seem to be the best approach one can have when writing, I’ve learned.  While there needs to be a focus, things also have to be allowed to veer off and branch out a bit, and occasionally go in an unplanned direction.  Sometimes where we intend it to go is not where it goes.  I’ve had some interesting things come out of past characters that I just didn’t know were in there until I started writing, like the old German man who lived alone in the mountains – who I later found out wore pantyhose;  I mean, who knew??  And that’s the terrifying thing about writing, to me; letting go and taking myself out of it.  That’s hard.  I’m also extremely afraid of failure, to the extent that I often don’t even try new things – I give up before I even begin.  Yes, I find that pathetic, but it’s the truth and it has taken me so many years to worm my way out of that limiting thought process.  It is still most definitely a daily struggle.  My method now is to give myself a set block of time each day and then force myself to sit there with no distractions.  Sometimes it works and things flow, and sometimes I stare at the wall and have nothing to show for it.

Speaking of writing, a couple new books arrived in the mail on Friday: Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Homemade with Love.  The Bernadette book was one that I resisted for a long time but I finally jumped on the bandwagon and it’s okay so far (I’m only on page 30).  Homemade with Love is a cookbook by Jennifer Perillo, of the blog In Jennie’s Kitchen.  I spent quite a bit of time reading it this weekend and mentally bookmarking nearly everything.  I have plans to make many, many recipes from it soon.  I made one this morning that was very good, but more on all of that in another post.

This was a good week for food.  There was the chicken pot pie, a minestrone soup that I always mean to post because it is one of our favorites and then I never do for some reason (but you can see it pictured above), and also a very rich fettucine alfredo.  I had never made fettucine alfredo before (it was requested by Jade and I obliged), and was surprised at how few ingredients it required and how incredibly quick it was to make.  But, oh boy, that is definitely not the type of thing you could eat on even a remotely regular basis.  I’m thinking like maybe once per year, it’s that unhealthy.  My only adjustment to the recipe was to add parsley on top and red pepper flakes in the sauce.  Jade already requested it for her birthday meal, so I guess we’ll just keep it in the special occasion file.  Also, I picked up three baskets of strawberries from the farmers market and they were gone in a day; we just can’t resist.  I also found myself in possession of a bag of Meyer lemons, and decided to make a curd.

Meyer Lemon Curd

This is a little different than my regular lemon curd recipe as Meyer lemons are softer and sweeter and more fragrant than regular lemons, and is a melting pot of this, this and this recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 whole egg
Pinch of kosher salt
1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions

Place all ingredients except butter into a small saucepan and whisk until combined.  Place over low heat and add the butter pieces.  Whisk until butter is completely melted, then raise heat to medium.  Whisk constantly until mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 5-10 minutes.  Do not over cook or the final product will be grainy.

Pour through a mesh stainer into a bowl or tupperware container.  Let cool 15 minutes, then press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface, cover with a lid, and refrigerate until cold, several hours.  Curd will thicken as it cools.

Makes 2 cups.

Chicken pot pie, at least to me, is one of the best comfort foods.  Nothing beats the smell of a pot pie baking in the oven, the crust getting puffy and flaky and golden brown, and the filling thick and creamy.  I make this once or twice a year to rave reviews.  This recipe is easy, but a little time consuming.  To make it slightly quicker, I use a store bought rotisserie chicken (just the breasts, because as soon as I open the package Jade immediately rips off the legs and thighs and eats them) and canned chicken stock, though you could of course roast your own chicken breasts and make your own stock.  A store-bought crust could also be used, though a homemade one is really not too much extra trouble.

The chicken is really not necessary here, and if you decide to make a vegetarian pot pie, you can simply up the amount of vegetables – adding other types, such as mushrooms, as well – and use vegetable stock in place of the chicken stock.  A tip I find handy with pot pie is to remember not to chop the vegetables too finely or they end up getting sort of lost in the final product and the whole thing looks like mush; you want the ingredients to be recognizable.  I aim for 1/4″ – 1/2″ pieces.

I like to bake this in a 9″ pie pan, but be warned that the filling makes a little too much to fit, so I pour the extra into an oven-proof soup bowl and re-roll the the leftover pie crust scraps to cover it.

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup flour
1 can reduced-sodium chicken stock (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cups milk (I use 1%)
Kosher salt and pepper
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast
1/2 cup frozen peas
2 – 3 tablespoons minced parsley
1 recipe pie crust (sugar omitted)
1 egg, beaten

Directions

In a medium pot, heat olive oil over medium and add onion, celery and carrot.  Cook until softened but not browned, about 10 minutes (reduce heat if necessary).  Add potatoes and continue to cook about five minutes.  I personally like to make sure the vegetables are really soft, because no one likes to bite into crunchy vegetables when eating pot pie (or soup, for that matter).

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir.  Mixture will be dry and crumbly.  Slowly pour in chicken stock and stir until flour is dissolved (the mixture will thicken).  Add milk and stir really well.

Raise heat and bring to a rapid simmer.  Reduce heat to keep at a low simmer for ten minutes, stirring frequently so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper.  Taste for seasoning and add more salt, little by little, until adequately seasoned.

Stir in the chicken, peas and parsley and heat through.  Check again for seasoning.  Keep pot on low heat (or turn off) until ready to fill the pan.

Heat oven to 375F.

While oven is heating, roll out pie crust.  Pour filling into a 9″ pie pan, or other oven-proof dish.  Pour any extra filling into an oven proof bowl.

Top pie with crust, trimming the sides to a 1/2″ overhang evenly around.  Tuck edges under and crimp.  Brush with beaten egg, cut slits in the top, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Re-roll crust scraps and place over the extra filling in the bowl.  Brush with egg, cut slits, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place pot pie(s) on a sheet pan and bake 40 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through.  If crust browns to quickly, loosely tent with foil.  Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

]]> http://janaemonir.com/2013/04/12/chicken-pot-pie/feed/ 0 janaemonir cooling scooped chicken pot pie and kale salad http://janaemonir.com/2013/04/08/2013-in-pictures-1452/ http://janaemonir.com/2013/04/08/2013-in-pictures-1452/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:56:25 +0000 Janae http://janaemonir.com/?p=15368 ]]> April 1-7.

Jade had spring break this week, which was so, so nice.  We slept in as much as possible.  We had one day of errands and chores, but the rest were full of fun things, like the Bowers Museum.  At the end of the week the three of us went to Palm Springs.  It was just one night, which was all the time we could find to get away, but we made good use of it.  We drove down early and got to Indian Canyon by 9am and hiked a few of the trails until about noon.  We spent rest of the afternoon by the pool at our hotel, and then we walked to the street fair (which was packed, elbow to elbow), the art museum, and dinner.  We had lunch with my mom the next day, then headed home.  Short, but sweet.  The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing.  And now everyone’s back where they usually are; work, school, etc.  How much longer until summer??

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This was a busy weekend.  Two birthdays to plan/cook for, and I also had a few people over on Friday night.  I was exhausted when it was over!  Jade had spring break starting on Monday, so we were able to sleep in and catch up on rest, thankfully.

We turned HBO off a while ago (after the Boardwalk Empire season ended) because there weren’t enough shows that we liked to justify the extra $20 a month, but they were running a promotion over Easter weekend so we had free access to HBO for three days.  I somehow managed to catch up and watch all of season two of Girls in between a million other things I had to do (and loved it).

A few recipes I made this week and loved:

Chana masala.  This received rave reviews from all who ate it.  The only thing I suggest doing is making a yogurt sauce, or raita, to go along side (or on top) of it.  I mixed plain yogurt with grated cucumber, minced cilantro, and salt and pepper.

Fudgy brownie cake.  It really was fudgy, and very rich.  When it came out of the oven it was beautiful, but it did sink quite a bit as it cooled.

Cream biscuits (for the strawberry shortcake).  I went back and fourth for an unreasonable amount of time on which biscuit recipe to make for this.  I looked at a ton of recipes, and ultimately decided not to fix what isn’t broken, and used our favorite cream biscuits instead.  Except that when I finally went to make them, I didn’t have enough cream (oops).  So, I rubbed some butter into the flour before adding the cream, to make up for it.  And, because they were going to be served as dessert, I sprinkled some tubinado sugar on top before baking.  Perfection.

About a year ago I posted a recipe for zucchini bread that I had made by accident after mixing the batter for what had been intended to be banana bread, only to discover the bananas were too far gone to use.  So, rather than throwing out the half-made batter, I tweaked it on the spot and ended up with a zucchini bread that tasted as good as it looked.  It was a happy ending at the time, but all things can be improved upon.  So, today I offer the zucchini bread I love.  It’s the one I make when I go into the kitchen intending to make nothing other than zucchini bread.  It’s an intentional, on purpose, bread.

Thanks to Ellie Krieger, this recipe is ‘healthier’ than most zucchini breads.  It’s still a bread and not necessarily diet food, obviously, but it’s about as non-threatening as a quick bread can be.  Some of the white flour is replaced with whole wheat (though I typically use white whole wheat altogether), and the sugar is drastically reduced from what I’ve seen in other zucchini breads.  Applesauce lends extra moisture since there’s not very much oil in this recipe.  In all, a satisfying bread that I love to make and eat.  (On purpose.)

Zucchini-Walnut Bread

Makes about eight hearty slices.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour)
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs
1 zucchini (1 1/4 cups grated)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Heat oven to 350F.  Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl, mix together the wet ingredients, then stir in the zucchini.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, then fold in the walnuts.

Spread batter into the pan and bake 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into bread comes out clean.

Cool 15 minutes in pan; transfer to a rack to cool completely.

* * *

Recipe adapted from Ellie Krieger’s Comfort Food Fix.

**

I had song lyrics looped in my head this week, and I couldn’t think of what song they were from.  I gave you everything you ever wanted / It wasn’t what you wanted.  So true sometimes.

**

So Cruel