Hooray, time for another "what am I looking at? I guess I'll have to take his word for it" casserole pictures. 

Its sickening the way Good Eats seems to influence what I crave. Tuesday night I saw an episode about casseroles, so of course all day Wednesday I sat around thinking about what kind of casserole I should make. So I decided on a corn flake chicken casserole, but sort of made it up as I went along.

• 3 stalks of celery (diced)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 1 can (14.5 oz) cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 cup chicken broth (low sodium)
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen corn
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen peas
• 2 medium potatoes, your choice (I used Yukon Gold, peeled & diced)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1.5 lbs cooked chicken (3 cups?)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbps flour
• pinch of salt
• 3 cups crushed corn flakes

Preheat the oven to 350.

Blanche the potatoes, until fork tender. Then set them aside. Sweat the celery and onion in a skillet (5 mins) with a pinch of salt. Push the vegetables to the outside of the pan and use the middle to make a roux with the buttter and flour. Let the roux cook for 3-5 mins before stirring in the celery and onions. At this point, if you have some lemon pepper seasoning, you can sprinkle it into your roux.

Add 1/2 cup chicken broth and 1/4 cup lemon juice to your roux, bring to a boil for 1 minute. Stir in your frozen vegetables, add your can of cream of chicken soup, followed by the chicken and potatoes. Stir thoroughly to coat, then dump your casserole filling into a 9 x 9 or 13 x 9 baking dish. If it seems thick, don't worry. It will thin out during the bake. Top the casserole with 2-3 cups of crushed corn flakes and bake for 45 minutes.

Once you've finished, I think you're supposed to let the casserole rest for at least half an hour so that it can return to being sliceable. I got a late start on all of this so by that time it was nearly 9pm and I couldn't wait any longer. So I ate pretty much right out of the oven. I also saved an extra cup of crush cornflakes to sprinkle on top of my hot, amoeba-like piece of casserole to give it some extra crunch.

The final product was good. Not great, but solidly good. I debated whether or not I should post it, if thats any indication. I think had this been 2 months ago and I was still in the habit of craving winter comfort food I'd be more excited about this. But since I've mentally transitioned to cooking outdoor with fire, I'll just give it a thumbs up.

Friday night we took the easy way out and ordered a pizza. Lauren was sick, we received a couple of dvds in the mail and decided that was enough. Saturday was a little different. After running a few errands we happened to catch the chicken pot pie episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Knowing that its getting warmer by the day, we decided to take one last run at winter comfort food with chicken pot pie. However, Bobby Flay's chicken pot pie recipe from Throwdown is not available on the Food Network website, because its a recipe he serves at one of his restaurants. So we got online to research what Good Eats had on the topic, which is how we came to the Curry Chicken Pot Pie:

• 4 cups frozen vegetable mix, peas, carrots
• 1 to 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1 package puff pastry

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Toss frozen vegetables with canola oil and spread evenly onto a sheet pan. Place into oven and cook until golden brown.

In a saute pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and sweat the onion and celery. In another saucepan, heat the broth and milk. Add 2 more tablespoons of butter to the celery mix and cook out the water. Add the flour and curry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk mixture and cook until thickened. Add the parsley, salt and pepper. Toss the browned vegetables and the chicken. Pour into a shallow baking pan, or a large terra cotta pot base, lined with foil, and top with 6 to 8 circles of puff pastry. Place into the oven and cook until puff pastry has browned and the mixture is hot and bubbly, about 25 minutes.

We made two changes to the recipe. First, we didn't roast the vegetables. We used frozen peas and canned corn, fresh carrots and potatoes (blanched, about 1.5 cups of each) and mushrooms. If you're going to do this though, you'll probably really want to consider adding at least 50% more liquid (milk/cream or chicken stock) than the recipe is calling for. Our potatoes sucked up all the extra moisture immediately and made the filling less of a thick soup and more of an actual pie filling. The filling made enough to fill a 13 x 9 pan, so plan on that. For the chicken we just picked up rotisserie chicken from the deli section at Meijer, then shredded it by hand.

Our second alteration was that we didn't use puff pastry because of our experience with the last pot pie. We instead made some sweet potato biscuits from scratch, an idea stolen from Bobby Flay but again not listed on the Food Network website (which makes us think he serves this at one of his restaurants). Luckily Paula Deen bailed us out with a recipe for her own sweet potato biscuits:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 heaping tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
• 2 to 4 tablespoons milk (depending on the moisture of the potatoes)

Directions Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate, large bowl, mix the sweet potatoes and butter. Add the flour mixture to the potato mixture and mix to make a soft dough. Then add milk a tablespoon at a time to mixture and continue to cut in. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and toss lightly until the outside of the dough looks smooth. Roll the dough out to 1/2-inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place the biscuits on a greased pan and coat tops with melted butter. Bake for about 15 minutes. (Watch your oven: If the biscuits are browning too fast, lower the temperature.)

Rather than lay the sheet of dough flat over the entire casserole we cut the biscuits into rounds and hoped they would expand. They didn't they grew up way more than they grew out, so we ended up with a 12 piece chicken pot pie, each with its own sweet potato biscuit yarmulka. Given that the filling was already cooked, we baked the dish per the biscuit instructions (450 for 15 minutes).

As far as the taste, it was surprising how far a teaspoon of curry powder goes for flavor. I figured that with all the milk, cream/butter and potatoes it would kind of get washed out but it didn't. So definitely don't add any more curry powder than it calls for. The pot pie was very good and a nice contrast to the cream heavy pot pie we made earlier from Paula Deen. The biscuits stole the show though. They were awesome. I can't wait to make something else we can use them in.

By the way, the picture above is not ours. I forgot to take a picture of it. But, it is a picture of the same curry chicken pot pie recipe that another food blog made.

Last night I made a Garlic Chicken Alfredo Lasagna, my first lasagna ever. It seemed straight forward enough but there were some rookie mistakes. First, I tried to make it convenient by purchasing oven-ready lasagna noodles. You buy them in the regular pasta section. The dry noodles are scored in such a way that they manage to absorb liquid from the lasagna ingredients. They seem easy enough, because you just lay them down like a brick mason, layering ingredients and sauce in between. However its a little unclear how much liquid is enough to get them to cook all the way through. So you might build your lasagna in 15 minutes, but you spend 45 minutes wondering if its going to be crunchy. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened to the top layer of noodles. They didn't quite cook all the way through. I don't know if that was because of the cheese on top or because liquid drained toward the bottom, but I have an idea of what it was.

My second mistake was in layering the lasagna. It had occurred to me that I should probably stack the noodles perpendicularly by layer but abandoned the idea quickly when I saw the size of the noodles. My pan was 13 x 9, but the noodles were about 10 inches long. So the noodles wouldn't fit across the pan without cutting them first, and when you cut dry pasta it cracks like glass. Yet another reason to take the time to get regular lasagna noodles and boil them before you lay them down. Much easier to manage odd lengths at that point. So I stacked the lasagna in the same fashion in all three layers. In retrospect I think what may have happened was that the liquid that should have remained at the top layer probably drained straight down the seam to the bottom. Or perhaps it was the order that I chose to layer my ingredients. Just for the sake of safety, I'm going to recommend that you use regular lasagna noodles if you attempt to follow this recipe just because I can't pinpoint exactly what I did wrong.

On to the recipe:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (approx. 2 lbs) diced, cooked
1 box no boil lasagna noodles (or regular lasagna noodles)
2 15 oz containers ricotta cheese
1 box frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, squeezed dry)
4 roma tomatoes, chopped fine
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 jars alfredo sauce
1 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic

Preheat the oven to 400. Mix ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and spinach in a large mixing bowl and set aside. As far as the garlic goes you can either add it to the chicken or add it to the sauce. Whisk milk and alfredo sauce together until smooth. Spoon a thin layer of the alfredo mixture on to the bottom of your pan. Put your first layer of lasagna noodles on top of it. Then spread your ricotta cheese mixture on top of the noodles, followed by your tomatoes and pepper. Cover with alfredo sauce. Add second layer of noodles. Repeat ricotta cheese, followed by chicken and mushrooms, covered with alfredo. Add third layer of noodles, cover with remaining ricotta and alfredo, top with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes.

In between our second and third dates, Lauren invited me over for dinner. It was the middle of the week and was a bit of a return favor for a time when I made her sweet tea and dropped it off in the middle of some remodeling she was doing on the house she lives in now. Her words specifically were "do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? We're having enchiladas." So I thought "cool, I love cheesy Mexican food."

Anyways I'm sitting there in the kitchen volunteering to help assemble the food and I'm taking inventory of everything (internally):

"Black beans, refried beans. Alright."

"Corn is good."

"Salsa, cheese, onions, cool. Mushrooms? Um..."

"Bell peppers. Cool, I probably won't taste them but filler is always good."

"Squash!? Zucchini!? WTF? I hate squash and zucchini."

"So, I noticed there isn't any chicken in sight."

"This is going badly. I am pretty sure this is more fiber than I've had in a month."

So we assemble everything without chicken or any meat whatsoever and while its baking I am sitting at the counter thinking "alright, here is how I'll get through this: one enchilada to be polite, with lots of sour cream, large bites and quick swallows, because if I bite into a chunk of cooked squash or zucchini I'm going to feel like vomiting".

The meal gets served, I take two enchiladas and execute my plan with very little spilled filling. Some weeks or months later I finally decided to tell Lauren how devastated I was at the surprise chickenless enchiladas.

Today they are one of my favorite dishes. The squash and zucchini are still bites I try to avoid, but these enchiladas are dynamite.

The Recipe:
1 can enchilada sauce
1 medium squash
1 medium zucchini
4 bell peppers (green, yellow, orange and red)
1/2 pkg sliced mushrooms
1 medium onion
1 can corn
1 can black beans
2 cups shredded cheese
15 - flour tortillas
1 jar salsa
sour cream

Heat the oven to 350. Dice and saute all the fresh vegetables until tender, drain the canned vegetables and add to skillet. Slather a spoonful of refried beans into the tortillas, 2-3 spoons full of filling and a spoonful of salsa. Roll tight and set in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish. The filling and refried beans should fill about 13 tortillas. Pour the enchilada sauce on top of the filled baking dish and spread, covering any exposed tortilla (to prevent drying). Bake for 15 minutes, then top with 2 cups shredded cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove and serve with sour cream.

Saturday morning I woke up at 8:45am, drove down to the YMCA and took part in my very first spin class. It was tough, sometimes annoying and definitely challenging but overall it was a good experience. Chances are I'll go again next Saturday. The only problem I found with going to spin class (I can, and will, refer to this way as though its something I've been doing for years) is that it gives me a false sense of accomplishment. So I spend the rest of the day going *stretch* "I need to go to the grocery store, but boy am I sore from spin class. I'll just finish watching this show and then I'll go."

Well "this show" turned into the Michigan game, a small nap and then about 3 hours of Food Network. After all of that I helped Lauren get some laundry done and made plans for dinner. We've gotten in to the idea of making at least one new dinner or lunch each week or so and slowly increasing the degree of difficulty. The last new one we did was chicken salad, which was followed by a really good egg salad. This time around we settled on homemade chicken pot pie. We used Paula Dean's "Lady & Sons Chicken Pot Pie" recipe as the base and then improvised from there (changes in bold):

Did I mention we started about 9:45pm? Thanks alot spin class.

Chicken Pot Pie (Degree of Difficulty: 6)

4 sheets frozen puff pastry
2-3 cups diced chicken (cooked)
1 egg, beaten
Seasoned salt and pepper
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups milk
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 small yellow onion, minced
1 cup frozen green peas, cooked
1 cup chopped cooked carrots
1 can (15 oz) corn
1 cup sliced mushrooms

The first step for this recipe is to take the puff pastry out of the freezer and let it sit at room temperature. For the chicken we used four thighs and one breast skinned, boned and cubed. I did a quick Italian dressing marinade before sauteing the chicken and onions in a skillet.

While I was doing that Lauren started the pie filling by melting the butter and then slowly adding flour until the mixture reached the consistency of peanut butter. When she dropped off to chop mushrooms and carrots I added the cream and milk to the butter/flour mixture. We've basically watched way too much Iron Chef America. I think secretly we both think that is what this is all building to even though we don't really have the necessary training. You'll notice later (the crust) that our timing kind of sucks.

The original recipe called for four cups of heavy cream, but we had some reservations about that amount making things too creamy. So we used half the amount and made up the difference with milk.

At this point Lauren steamed the carrots and then sauteed them in chicken stock with the mushroom and garlic for about five minutes, adding the peas and corn for the final two.

When that was finished we added the chicken and vegetables to the sauce, brought it to a high simmer and then moved on to crust. For the crust what you need to do is roll out the puff pastry, brush it with egg and butter and set it inside a pie plate or casserole dish. Place the bottom crust in your baking dish and bake it at 350 for at least 10-12 minutes (or until golden brown or flaky). The bottom crust will NOT cook substantially once you've added the filling. Add the top layer of puff pastry to cover your pie and cook for 15-20 minutes (or until golden brown).

This recipe makes enough filling for two 9 inch pies. We used an 8x8 baking dish. Any unused pie filling freezes easily, so you can store it for a future meal.

We finally finished around 10:45pm, but it was worth the wait. Overall this recipe cost us almost $40, but that includes a number of questionable and "bad luck" purchases of things we should have had but happened to be out of. Flour, $2.50 organic peas, $5 organic butter, $9 of puff pastry when we could have used two $1.50 frozen pie shells or made our own dough with the flour we just bought.

In case you were wondering, this was the highlight of my weekend. Doubly so since it started snowing last night, because that means I'm going to make the backup pie tonight or tomorrow while I lament the arrival of winter.