Chicken Pot Pie With Cornbread Crust

I took the day off today and had the opportunity to watch some afternoon television, something I rarely get to do. I tuned in to part of Oprah's show.

They were discussing how to economically stretch a roasted chicken to several meals. Seeing as how DeeDude (my husband) had gotten us a rotisserie chicken from Costco the other day and there was still quite a lot of meat on it I decided to make one of the recipes. Interestingly, after I'd cut up 2 cup's worth for the recipe there is still just as much meat left on the bones. Maybe I'll make the enchiladas they made on another segment of the show for tomorrow's dinner.

Actually, the plan for tonight's dinner was to have been a chicken pot pie but I'd been putting off making the pie dough just because I was having an attack of the lazies. The meal they made on Oprah was a chicken pot pie with cornbread as the topping.I stuck to the recipe until it came to the cornbread. I didn't make mine up from scratch, but instead used one of those boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix I had up in the cupboard. I wait until they go on sale and stock up. It was perfect to use as the crust. I also had enough filling for a large, deep dish pie pan and two individual serving sized casseroles.

This is my version of Chicken Pot Pie Adapted from the Oprah Show

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1/4 sweet onion, chopped
1/4 cup flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups chopped chicken (this was one leg, one thigh, one wing and some of the breast meat)

1/2 cup frozen peas
1 potato diced

1 chopped carrot

1 chopped rib of celery

I boiled up the potato, carrots and celery for a few minutes until they were just slightly cooked. They would finish the rest of the way in the oven. I put the oil and butter in a skillet dumped in the onion and sauteed that for a little bit. I put in the flour and messed that around a bit so the flour would cook up a little. Then, I poured in the hot chicken stock. I stirred it around a bit until it wasn't lumpy anymore and then added the veggies and the chicken. Stirred it a little bit on the heat and then turned the heat off once the sauce was cooked.

Then I prepared the Jiffy cornbread mix. I didn't mix it much, just until it was lumpy. I divided the chicken mixture between the pie pan and the two small casserole dishes and then smoothed the Jiffy cornbread over top in a relatively thin layer. There wasn't enough that it went to the edges of the pan. The one they did on the Oprah show was thicker on top. But, we enjoyed the thinner version I put together.

I baked it all at 350 edging up to 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I was aiming for 400, but by the time I was ready the oven hadn't gotten up that high. It worked out fine just the way I did it. Nice and golden brown on top. You can go to Oprah's website and get directions for their version which includes a from scratch cornbread topping. They also called for pepper where I used only a sprinkle to season and lots of dashes of Tabasco which I didn't use at all.

Even so, DeeDude and I really enjoyed dinner and it was perfect that I got to watch them make it on television today. If you're interested, and I think you should, go look at the recipe for Chicken Pot Pie at Oprah's site here or the Enchilada recipe here.

Birthday Muffins For My Husband

My husband's birthday was a week ago, but our schedules were hectic and he had a cold at the time, so we have designated this as his birthday weekend. In honor of that I decided we could start it off with some home made muffins. Again, I turned to my copy of Granny's Muffin House for basics and for inspiration I turned to my Guides. Here's what happened:

Mix together dry ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar

Mix together wet ingredients:
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup sour cream (I didn't have a cup, so we used what we had)
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp of vanilla
a handful of crushed walnuts
a handful of Craisins which are cranberries that have been dried and look like raisins (the guides wanted me to use up some old prunes we had in the refrigerator, but I balked at that idea and opted for the cran-raisins instead)

I mixed the wet into the dry ingredients and right away realized it wasn't wet enough! Yikes. So, as I was reaching for the milk one of the guides suggested I get the half and half instead. I know this isn't the proper way to mix up muffins, but hey, it was an emergency and it worked out fine. I splashed about 1/4 cup worth of half and half onto the already mixed up dough and mixed it around some more. It was fine. So, the 1/4 cup of sour cream that was missing needed to be replaced by something and that something was the half and half.

I piled high 12 muffin cups (lined with baking papers) and baked them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

Very yummy.