Chicken Pot Pie

This weekend I took a french pastry class!  We learned how to make croissants and pain au chocolat, and the best part was that we got to take home some of the dough!  I had no intention of making more croissants though, I had no idea how much butter went into those, like a whole plateful.  The whole time we were working the dough I was day dreaming about Market Basket‘s (not the New England chain) Chicken Pot Pie.

Once I found out that we got to take the dough home, I knew what I had to do.  I minimally adapted the recipe from Home Cooking in Montana and I froze them right away, so I can’t comment on the finished product yet.

Ingredients: 4-6 servings

• 1 chicken breast
• 1-2 two carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 1/2 an onion
• 1 cup peas
• any other vegetable of your choice
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• flour
• water
• 1 cup milk
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• pastry dough
• 1 egg

1.  Dice all of your ingredients to bite size, I recommend not putting them all on one plate, like I did because they will all go into the pot at different times

2.  Season the chicken, I like to use my parents grilling marinade, then sauté it until it’s cooked through, then set it aside

3.  In a medium sauce pot start sauté the onions until they start to loose their color

4.  Add the celery and the carrots and continue cooking until the carrots are soft, and no longer crunchy, add the garlic after 2 minutes

5.  Sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of flour and then stir with heat for 30ish seconds

6.  Add water, I used a little more than a cup, but it doesn’t have to be precise, just make sure that all the vegetables are submerged/floating

7.  Add the bay leaf

9.  Put the heat on low, cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes, stir every couple minutes

10.  After ten minutes add the chicken, then recover it and let it cook until you’re happy with the consistency of the vegetables.

11.  Add the milk and don’t recover

12.  Make a slurry and add it to the mix

• 2 tablespoons of flour mixed with 3-4 tablespoons of water

13.  Cook until the “stew” is thickened to your liking, if necessary add  another slurry

14.  Add the peas and season to taste, I used a seasoned salt instead of plain

15.  Pour it or spoon it into a oven safe container, I used disposable aluminium tins

16.  If you’re cooking it right away, set the oven to 400˚ Fahrenheit

17.  Place dough on top of your container and pinch it around the edges.  If you’re using an aluminium container like mine, just make sure that the dough covers  the entire surface.  If you have a lot of dough you can line the inside with dough as well, like a real pie

18.  If your freezing, you’re done for now, and you’ll do the last steps before cooking the pie

19.  Whisk the egg yolk, and add a little milk, then glaze the top of the pastry

20.  Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked.  If yours was frozen it may take up to 40 minutes

 

More pictures to come later in the week!  It took me about an hour and a half just to do this so make sure you have some time on your hands before you start

Classy Scrambled Eggs

Today I was looking through my fridge and realized that I have some left of over cream cheese from my pancakes, and some smoked salmon that was about to hit it’s expiration date.  I came up with cream cheese scrambled eggs, with smoked salmon and cucumbers.  Don’t get thrown off by the cucumbers, they are great served hot!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 or two slices of smoked salmon
• 4-6 slices of cucumber
• dollop of cream cheese

1.  Cut up the salmon and cucumber into little peices

2.  Mix eggs with cream cheese

3.  Scramble eggs, and once they start to become solid, add the cucumbers and salmon

If you want to make this even classier you could turn it into an omelette, but it was seriously easy and sooooo good!

Note:  The salmon will cook faster than the cucumber, so if you want it to keep that sushi like quality I would put the cucumber in first, then wait and put the salmon in right before the eggs are done.

Cream Cheese Pancakes

I’ve been missing my American pancakes, crepes are great and all, but there is nothing like a fluffy pancake to start my day.  I knew that IHOP has a cream cheese pancake, and I figure if they could do it I could too!  I needed some help with the recipe so I found this from myrecipes, which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.  Of course I didn’t have bisquick so I added  baking powder and salt to my flour.

Clockwise from noon: two mixing bowls, cream cheese, vanilla sugar, egg, strawberries, butter, baking powder, sugar, milk

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons of sugar (optional, I had vanilla sugar, so I used that)
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 – 2 cups milk, you want the consistency to be kind of soupy so start with 1 1/2 and if you need it add in some more
• 3oz cream cheese (softened)
• 1 tablespoon butter (softened)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract/1 packet vanilla sugar
• Some cut strawberries

1. Start with the dry ingredients, if your feeling it sift the flour, if not stir in the baking powder and sugar

2. Mix together the egg, milk, cream cheese, butter and vanilla

3.  Add it to the flour

If yours has swirls like this, add more milk!

4.  Check the consistency, and if need be add more milk

5.  Throw some strawberries in there

6.  Butter a skillet and spoon out your first pancake, we found that ours had a much thicker consistency than we were used to and we had a little trouble cooking the first couple, but we figured it out by the end

Et Voilà, le petit déjeuner americain!

L’Escargot!

As promised, here is another French Native!  I found this guy along with about a thousand others on a hike in Picardie

Oh hello there. . .

In honor of my living in France, I’ll spend a week posting animals native to France, so here you have the French brown bear.

DIY Ombre

After a failed experience at a Parisian hairdresser a decided that I would “ombre” my own hair.  It turned out to be really easy and it came out great!

What you need:

• L’Oreal Perfect Blonde Highlighter Kit
• Towel

1.  Follow the instructions on the highlighter kit and mix everything

2.  Put the towel around your shoulders, so the bleach/dye doesn’t get on you

3.  Part your hair into two sections

4.  Beginning at the ends work the dye into your hair, stopping where you want the ombre to begin

5.  Leave in for 15-20 minutes (don’t be afraid to leave it in, and if your worried it’s getting too blonde, you can just rinse it and try again)

6.  Wash out all the dye from your hair and blow dry it completely

7.  Apply the highlighter again, this time don’t go up as high

8.  Wash and dry

9.  One more time, this time really just get the ends

10.  Wash and dry, if you decide you want to go blonder try again, it’s not very precise and it may take longer depending on your hair type/color

So that’s all there is! It’s really easy and there isn’t too much risk cause if you end up not liking the way it turned out you can just cut it!

Savory Oatmeal

For today I have something of my own invention!  Savory oatmeal with sauteed mushrooms and spinach!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Oats (I have no clue what kind mine are)
• 3/4 cup milk
• Spinach and mushrooms (or whatever you have on hand)
• Seasoned salt

1.  So I started by putting my milk on low and sautéing my veggies

2.  Pour in oats, and turn up the stove.

3.  Stir the oats!  I noticed that if you leave them alone too long, they get kind of smoky, so make sure your watching out for them

4.  Once the oats thicken, start trying them, and when you like the consistency take them off the stove and add the seasoned salt to taste.

5.  Pour the your veggies, et voilà!

They don’t look quite as delicious as they were, so don’t judge by the picture!

Back Again!

We’re back!  I’m going to keep my tumblr account for Paris and start doing DIY stuff at fluff, I recently bought a french cookbook for students so after I try out some recipes I’ll translate the best ones and post them up!