Chicken pot pie

 
The other day, I made our favorite ridiculously crazy delicious Zuni cafe roast chicken. We only ate about half, so I stripped the rest and pondered its future. A quick scan of foodgawker for inspiration reminded me of the existence of chicken pot pie. I looove chicken pot pie (who doesn't?), but it's usually so weighed down with butter and cream my wee ladybrain has a hard time justifying the calorie bomb. So, I read a few dozen recipes to get a gist of the canonical ingredients and method, then pared it all down and came up with this.

I wanted to keep it simple: leftover chicken, carrots and peas for vegetation, and thyme for herbage. I went out on a limb by halving the butter in my regular pie crust recipe and honestly, it's perfect this way. It's absolutely still tender and buttery, but the interior is so rich and creamy, you would never guess there's only about a tablespoon of butter in each personal pie and absolutely no cream at all. I jacked up the veggie quantities as well. I don't make "diet" food; I just don't see a reason to eat more not-so-healthy stuff than actually makes food taste good. Fat-free and austere is not delicious at all, but I don't find a quarter cup of butter per serving particularly appealing either. There is a sweet spot, and this pot pie hits it.

Turkey shepherd's pie

 

This is my light take on a classic. I substitute ground turkey for the beef or lamb, pack it full of veggies, and skip the cheese altogether (I honestly just don't think it needs it). The result is heavy on flavor, light on damage. It also reheats very nicely, making it ideal to stick in a lunchbox.

The vegetables I used on this occasion are carrots, mushrooms, and zucchini, but the possibilities are endless. Frozen peas would be pretty classic, but you could use spinach, green beans, whatever you want. You are the boss of you. Clean out that fridge.

Chicken sausage, asparagus, and haricots verts pasta

This is a quick post illustrating how I adapt recipes according to what's laying around my kitchen. Tonight, I made this again. I didn't have broccoli, so I used a few rogue asparagus spears and haricots verts. It's perfectly healthy and took a grand total of twenty minutes. We are full and happy. You can be full and happy too! What's rattling around your fridge begging to be eaten?

4 oz pasta, we like rotini or fusili in this
2 cooked sausages, thinly sliced (I had chicken andouille, not homemade, sadly)
big pinch of red chili flakes
1/2 a shallot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
7 or 8 asparagus spears, cut into bite-sized lengths
handful of haricots verts, cut into bite-sized lengths
big splash of chicken stock, low sodium is ideal
handful of Parmesan cheese, finely grated or microplaned

Cook your pasta. Drain and set aside. While that's happening, saute your sausage in a nice wide pan with a little extra virgin olive oil until nicely browned. Add your chili flakes, shallot and garlic and allow to soften for a minute. Add the asparagus and some chicken stock. Season with a little kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. After another minute, add the haricots verts. Don't cook the crap out of the veggies, you should be ready to eat about 3 minutes after you've added the asparagus. Moisten with more chicken stock if necessary, and add the pasta and cheese. Toss toss toss. Eat happily.

Serves 2, takes no time at all.

Red curry noodles with ground pork, red pepper and carrots

I've been slowly accumulating food magazines over the last couple of years. I knew I wouldn't make probably a quarter of the recipes in them and the pile was beginning to get unwieldy, so lately I've been flipping through them and cutting out the ones that speak to me (then taping them to paper and sliding into plastic sheets in a cute binder). This simple and adaptable recipe was yelling at me the loudest, "Make me! ME!"... So I obliged.

Whatever you've got in the crisper is going to work in this dish. I used a red pepper and the rest of the carrots from my garden but it would be great with cabbage, zucchini or summer squash strips, beans or snap peas would be particularly good, and so on. You could certainly use any ground meat you like, and if you don't have ground meat you could just slice a chicken breast or pork chop thinly and use strips. 

Tilapia and vegetables in coconut chowder

This is a quick, colorful, super healthy weeknight dish. And infinitely adaptable to what you have laying around the kitchen and don't know what to do with, much like my frittata recipe. In this case, I had a handful of snow peas, half a red bell pepper left from a moderately successful peperonata experiment, couple of fingerlings, chunk of butternut, and a lonely old carrot. It's also easy on the dishes, only two pots! If your two-legged dishwasher is anything like mine, they'll be psyched.

And a few leaves of basil to tie it all together. Thai basil would be ideal and I will plant it again in the garden this year, but this is regular ole Genovese and it was just fine.

1 Thai chili, minced (seeds removed if it's going to be too hot for you)

1/2 an inch or so of ginger, minced or microplaned

1 garlic clove, minced or microplaned

1/4 a yellow onion, finely diced

handful of snow peas

half a red bell pepper, julienned

2 or 3 fingerling potatoes, cut into small rounds

chunk of butternut squash, cut into cubes the same size as the potatoes

lonely old carrot, diced finely

1 can coconut milk (I generally use the "light" one)

~1-2 cups of vegetable broth

~2 tsp green curry paste

zest of 1 lime

few dashes of fish sauce (don't chicken out, it's non-negotiable for authenticity - and, it is salty awesomeness)

few pinches of brown sugar

2 tilapia fillets

4 or 5 basil leaves, torn or julienned

1/2 cup of white or jasmine rice

sprinkle of cilantro

My white rice technique is pretty simple. I have never trusted the add-double-the-water thing where you just clamp a lid on and never stir, for me it always turns out gummy and stuck on the bottom. So I cook my rice in plenty of salted water and drain into a metal sieve just before it's cooked through. Then I pop the whole sieve back into the pot with a little water on the bottom, put it back on the heat, then clamp a lid on and let it steam for a few minutes. Voila, gorgeous fluffy rice every time. Anyway, yeah - do this.

Meanwhile, in a large heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven, saute the chili, ginger, garlic, and onion in a drizzle of vegetable oil. Once the onion has softened, add your potatoes, squash, and carrot and allow to cook for a minute before adding the coconut milk, vegetable stock, green curry paste, lime zest, fish sauce, and brown sugar. I was careful to only add a little green curry paste since I didn't intend this to be a curry. It functions more as a seasoning here. Fish sauce is mad salty, so you may not need to add much more kosher salt for seasoning - just taste it as you go along. Ditto for pepper, considering the Thai chili. Cover and allow to cook for about 10 minutes, then add the red bell pepper, snow peas, and dunk the fillets right into the sauce, thinning with more vegetable broth if necessary. Cover again and let the fillets cook, probably another 7 or 8 minutes. Once everything has cooked through, stir in the basil.

Serve your lovely coconut fish and vegetable chowder in a wide shallow bowl with a scoop of rice and sprinkle of cilantro on top.

Serves 2, takes half an hour.

Sausage and broccoli pasta

A quickie. Unfortunately, all I really have time for these days.

This is one of my favorite go-to weeknight recipes. All you really need is a pantry staple (pasta), a freezer staple (frozen chicken or turkey sausage), a crisper staple (broccoli - although I've used everything from asparagus to chard), and a cheese staple (good ole Parmesan).

Steaks with Swiss chard and sun-dried tomato mac and cheese

The other day, Allan jokingly suggested we call ourselves "Pure Land Organic Swiss Chard and Mint", since those are the only two crops that really flourished in the garden. Honestly, I'd be happy with a Swiss chard farm. The stuff is magical. But alas, the final Swiss chard harvest of the summer is upon us.

My plants produced huge gorgeous leaves for about three whole months. I think I'm going to plant some freshies to see if they'll grow for fall. My mustard greens are shaping up nicely in the mean time. And kale, I need to plant some kale! Big weekend of planting coming up in the garden.

I love the sweet, concentrated tomatoey-ness of sun-dried tomatoes. The other week I made some simple oven-dried tomatoes for eating with various cheeses on baguette toasts - just quartered baby plum tomatoes, sea salt, and olive oil. I will definitely make them again, but jarred ones work just fine here, since they're getting pureed to smithereens.

Whole-wheat cherry scones

I don't have a whole lot of experience with baking. I live in one of those households where if I bake it, I'll probably be the only one eating it, and the easiest way to not eat a whole pan of brownies is to not make it in the first place.

However, I do like whipping up a batch of baked goods on Sunday for easy workday breakfasts. The easiest trick to pull out is my favorite muffin recipe, but even though I've experimented with dozens of different ingredients, sometimes you just get sick of muffins.