Chicken Pot Pie

This recipe is also taken from A Taste of Home and makes two pies. One is planned to be baked right away and the other can be frozen and used later. This recipe does take a little bit of work to make, but since you make two and save one for later, it's worth it.

Ingredients:

2 cups diced, peeled potatoes
1 3/4 cups sliced carrots
2/3 chopped onion
1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cans chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk
4 cups cubed, cooked chicken
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen corn
Pastry for 2 double crust pies, 9 inch

Directions:

1. Place potatoes and carrots in a large saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until crisp tender. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large skillet, saute onion in butter until tender.
3. Stir in flour, salt, thyme and pepper until blended.
4. Gradually stir in broth and milk.
5. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
6. Add the chicken, peas, corn, potatoes, carrots; remove from heat.
7. Line two 9 inch pie plates with bottom pastry, trim even with the edge of the plate.
8. Fill pastry shells with chicken mixture.
9. Roll out remaining pastry and fit to top of pies.
10. Cut slits in pastry, seal and flute edges.
11. Bake one potpie at 425 for 35-40 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.
12. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.
13. Cover and freeze remaining pie for up to 3 months.

To use frozen pie:
Shield frozen pie crust edges with foil; place on a baking sheet. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350; bake for 70-80 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown.

Notes:
To cut down on some work I bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and cubed that. i also bought 2 pie bottoms for each pie, filled one then peeled the other crust off the tin and fit it to the top. I also don't think I would use thyme next time around. It's not bad, I just don't like that seasoning for some reason.

Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle

Ingredients:

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
1/2 cup cold milk
1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
1 carton (12 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup margerine, melted
2 cans of strawberry pie filling

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.
2. Add sour cream; mix well.
3. In a small bowl, beat milk and pudding mix on low for 2 minutes.
4. Stir pudding into cream cheese mixture.
5. Fold in whipped topping.
6. In a 2 1/2 quart trifle bowl, spread half of the pudding mixture in the bottom, then spread half the graham crackers over the mixture and lastly spread half of the strawberry filling over the crumbs. Repeat layers one more time.
7. Chill before serving.

Chicken Manicotti

This recipe was taken from the Taste of Home magazine and can be frozen and saved for up to one month. The recipe actually makes 2 dishes with one being frozen for later use. I found that it fed our family, so if you have more than a family of 4 you may want to cook both dishes at once.

Ingredients:

Garlic Powder
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast
16 uncooked manicotti shells
2 jars of speghetti sauce (kept separate)
1 pound bulk Italian sausage, cooked and drained
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced (I omitted these when I made the dish)
shredded mozzarella cheese
2/3 cups water, divided

Directions:

1. Cut chicken into 1 inch strips
2. Sprinkle garlic powder over chicken
3. Stuff chicken into manicotti shells
4. Spread about 1 1/2 cups of spaghetti sauce in 2 greased 13 x 9 baking dishes
5. Place 8 manicotti shells in each dish
6. Sprinkle with sausage and mushrooms
7. Pour remaining spaghetti sauce over the top of the shells
8. Sprinkle mozzerella over the sauce
9. Drizzle water around the edge of each dish
10. Cover and bake one casserole at 375 for 65-70 minutes or until pasta is tender and juices run clear
11. Cover and freeze the remaining casserole for up to 1 month.

To use frozen casserole:
Thaw in the refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Bake as directed .

*Note*
I Chose to sprinkle more mozzarella on the top of the dish when it came out of the over, so the cheese was freshly melted.

Pureed Pumpkin

Safeway had their Saturday and Sunday sale last week and I got 2 pumpkins for $4.99. I made pumpkin puree today, I had to call my friend Hannah for some tips since I was doing a huge pumpkin and not pie pumpkins like on thriftymom.com. Thanks Hannah!

First off we have our medium sized pumpkin.

Cut the pumpkin in half lengthwise.


clean out all the seeds and guts.

I enlisted the kids to help. Lennon helped too he just had to leave before I got the camera out. Because the pumpkin was so big I had to cut it into quarters. I baked half of the pumpkin at a time.


Place skin up in a 9x13 pan. Add a little water and cover with foil. Bake at 375 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours.

The skin will still be firm but soft on the inside when it is done. I like how Hannah described it - she said "it's like a potato after it has baked" it will smoosh.

Let the pumpkin cool so you can handle it. Then you peel off the skin and put it in the food processor or blender. (Since Hannah told me about the potato thing it made me think of how you can squish the potato out of the peel after it has baked. So I kind of smooshed the pumpkin in the pan to help release it from the skin a bit) Then I used my hands and sometimes a paring knife to get the skin off. It was like peeling sunburned skin! well not that thin of skin but you get the picture. Sorry if that was gross!

Finally I poured premeasured pumpkin puree into plastic containers and plastic Ziploc bags. All of the bags are 1 cup and the plastic containers (except 2) are 2 cups. I ended up with 18 1/2 cups of pureed pumpkin and still have another one to do! Yeah I'm getting out those pumpkin recipes.

Cheesy Sausage Potatoes

Last week Safeway had all their sausages on sale and there was a great coupon because it's Oktoberfest. I bought two Hillshire Farms Beef Polska Kielbasa. Today I used one of them to make dinner. I had my two helper chefs, Meghan and Abby.






First the girls helped me peel 6-8 potatoes and I cubed them.


We boiled them for about 7 minutes.


Meanwhile I sliced the sausage and chopped onions and bell pepper and sauteed until the sausage was brown.

We drained the potatoes and placed them at the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish. Then we placed the sausage mixture on top of the potatoes and then put cheese on top of that and sprinkled a little pepper. We baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes and here is our final result.


It was good. Bill said it was a hit.