Chicken Shepherd’s Pie

This might serve four if you have a salad with it.

Filling Ingredients:

½ cup pearl onions, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

½ large (or one whole normal-sized) chicken breast, roasted, diced.

1 can Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup (NOT reconstituted)

½ cup frozen beans, cut into 1” pieces

2 fresh carrots (¾ cup), diced and steamed until beginning to get tender

¾ cup frozen corn

1 frozen cube pesto

Butter for frying

Layers

1 medium baked potato, cooked, but firm, sliced thin (3/16”?)

4 or 6 slices of bacon, baked crispy, crumbled

1 cup “Mexican Shredded Cheese” (yellow & white)

Topping

1 ½  cups all-purpose flour

1 ½  teaspoons baking powder

1 ½  teaspoons kosher salt

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 ½  cups whole or 2% milk

Instructions:

In a 10” cast iron frying pan, fry the onions and garlic until beginning to get tender. Add chicken. When it’s hot, add soup. When that gets warm, add veggies and pesto. Simmer for a bit to let it thicken. Stir a bit, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan.

Preheat to 375⁰. Mix the topping. It’ll whisk up nicely, and it will be runny.

In the frying pan, layer the potato over the filling mixture, and spread the cheese over the potatoes. Then pour the topping on top, covering it all.

Put on a tray in the oven (your pan will likely be pretty full!). Bake for 45 minutes, or until brown on top. 

Review: This was really pretty darned good. I very much like the biscuit crust on top. Might need a little more pepper and other spices, but this is a keeper! 

I may need to learn how to halve this recipe.

Bacon Apple Pie

I saw a photo online and had to make it.

I used a store-bought pie crust.

Filling:

4 small Granny Smith apples

2 medium Gala apples (this is what I had around)

1/3 cup sugar

½ tsp (or so) cinnamon.

Just a bit of butter, in chunks

Topping:

¾  cup all-purpose flour

½  teaspoon ground cinnamon

½  cup packed brown sugar

   (I didn’t have brown sugar, so I used white sugar with 2 TBSP maple sugar.)

¾  cup rolled oats

   (Oops. I forgot these.)

1 teaspoon lemon zest

   (Oops, forgot this, too.)

I mixed all this together in a Cuisinart. If you mix it by hand, it may be easier to work with.

Top Coat:

6 half-size slices of bacon

Lay ‘em out on paper towels on a baking tray. Bake ‘em until they’re beginning to get crispy. Set aside. Note: you’ll probably want to bake much more than this, but be sure to keep enough around for the pie.

Instructions:

Put the pie crust in the pie pan and set it in the freezer. It seems a frozen crust will resist damage from apple slices.

Preheat oven to 375⁰. Mix up the filling. Make sure you have enough. Load the filling into the frozen pie crust, spread a bit of butter (maybe 1 TBSP total) in little slices around the top of the apples.  Bake for 10 minutes. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and bake for another 30 minutes. Add the topping in little crumbles, and bake, uncovered, for 10 or 15 minutes until brown.  

Add the bacon while the pie is still hot. Let ‘em cool together.

Sardines and Rice

Ingredients

 

¾ cup Arborio Rice

1 TBSP olive oil

1 TBSP avocado oil

1 TBSP butter

Lots of water

½ cup dried anchovies. Suggested: rehydrate ‘em first. ==>

    (or use a tin of sardines, diced?)

2 small shallots, sliced and chopped.

4 cloves fresh garlic, smashed and finely chopped

2 TBSP chopped green onions

1 jalapeño pepper, sliced and chopped.

4 young kale leaves, sliced finely

¼ tsp vegetable bouillon (consider chicken?)

½ roasted chicken breast, chopped small

2 TBSP Pad Thai sauce

1 large egg

1 or 2 TBSP sesame seeds

Instructions

Halfway through the process

Heat a large cast iron frying pan. Add the oils and butter, and sauté the shallots, garlic. Add the rice and chopped dry anchovies and sauté some more until the rice is a golden brown.  

Add half a cup of water (expect a lot of steam), while stirring. Every time the rice mixture absorbs (or boils off) the water, add more, always stirring. This will take at least half an hour.

Throughout the process, add other things. I added the bouillon, green onion and jalapeño early in the process, the kale and roast chicken late in the process. I’d always add the ingredients, stir briefly, add the water, and stir quite a lot more.

Immediately after one of the last additions of water, dig a hole in the middle of the pan and crack the egg into it. Scramble it in place, then mix it in with the rest.

Add Pad Thai sauce and ⅔ of the sesame seeds, and stir them in.

Serve, and garnish with remaining sesame seeds.