Pot Pie

I am often told that my tiny mini looks just like me.  I am also often told, during her moments of brilliance, that she acts just like me too.

So the other day my tiny mini got to bring her bike to preschool for a bike parade.  She was very excited, so she dressed herself in her exercise clothes and proudly told me she was going to beat all the boys.  I reminded her that was a parade, not a race.  And then I realized, that I had passed this mentality on to my mini.....

So I did the only thing I could do, I zipped up her vest, adjusted her headband, and sent her off on her Disney Princess bike to beat all the boys.

And, to Mr. McGhee, all my concerned readers....I did put a helmet on my tiny mini.  We just choose to leave it off for the photo.

I wanted to cook up something special for my little racer, so I decided that what she needed was to come home that night to a piping hot homemade chicken pot pie.

First step is to make your pie crust.  I doubled this recipe to make mine.  I used whole wheat flour for mine, which you will soon see was a mistake!

Pie Crust

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening, chilled
• 3 tablespoons ice water

1. Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water over flour. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.
2. Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
3. Roll out dough, and put in a pie plate. Fill with desired filling and bake.

The shortening that I used.

Mixing my ingredients.

Dough is rolled up and ready to chill.

My dough would not roll out.  So I had to basically push in into the pie plate to mold it into a crust.  It wasn't pretty, but it was tasty!

Next, you make your filling.

Chicken Pot Pie

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed (I used thigh meat, it was on sale!)
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1/2 cup sliced celery
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into one inch cubes
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 3/4 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C.)
2. In a saucepan, combine raw chicken, carrots, peas, and celery. Add water (I used chicken broth) to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.
3. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Put your chicken and veggies in a saucepan.

Cover with water or chicken broth and cook for at least 15 minutes.

Once cooked, drain and set aside.

Saute your onion in butter.

Slowly add your flour and spices, stirring with each small addition.

Stir until your onions resemble this.  

Then slowly start adding your milk/chicken broth, 1/4 of a cup at a time.  Stir and mix very well after each addition.  Fancy people call this making a roux, country people call this making a gravy.  Hungry people call this delicious.

Put your chicken and veggies into your pie pan.

Pour your gravy on top.

Place your pie crust on top.  Mine is pitiful, I know!

Bake until golden.

Chicken pot pie is hands down one of the favorite meals in our house.  I love that I can make (and bake) this ahead of time and warm it up for dinner.  I have heard that these freeze well, I will try that soon.  Once I can perfect a pie crust!

Cookies and Chard

Yesterday's bread is ah-may-zing.  So, if a little bit of bread flour and shortening is wrong, then I don't want to be right.  I still plan on trying to replace the shortening with coconut oil, but I've gotta say....I am over my shortening shame.  Yesterday's bread is yum-o, delish.

Do your minis love granola bars?  I'm hearing from a lot of people that granola bars are a staple in their minis' lives.  Well, the mini McGhees are missing their granola bars, and I have this recipe from marathon mom that I have been dying to try.  Marathon mom is the homeschooling mom to 7 boys and pregnant with an 8th baby.  From now on, I will refer to myself as 5k mom.  Maybe even kids fun run mom.  Here's her recipe.

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

1/3 cup local honey

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup oats (not quick oats)

2 tablespoons wheat germ

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup chocolate chips (Mini work best, but it doesn’t really matter.)

What to do:
1. Melt the butter, peanut butter and honey in a pot over medium to low heat, stirring constantly. Turn off the burner when melted.
2. Pour in the cup of oats and the wheat germ. Stir til combined.
3. Wait til it cools and stir in the coconut and chocolate chips. Or, if you’re impatient with things like this, like I am, go ahead and dump it all right in. The result will be a more uniform chocolate taste.
4. Pour into foil-lined 8 X 8 pan and stick in the fridge.
5. Once cooled, flip out (the bars….not you) onto cutting board and cut to the size you like.

OK, so I'm the type of girl that calls a spade a spade.  And this, folks, is a cookie, not a granola bar.  It's a damn good tasting cookie that the McGhee family snarfed down as if we hadn't seen food in real food in weeks (there's a joke in there somewhere, I know it).  However, I struggle to say that this is a healthy, nutritional snack to give your minis.  BUT, because this recipe is delicious and the minis loved it, I am going to tweak it, maybe add a few things to see if I can increase the nutritional value of it.  And, I will say....it is a HUGE improvement over the HFCS-filled store-bought granola bars.  Give it a try....the McGhee family gave this a huge, sticky, chocoately double thumbs up.

Tonight's dinner was a spinoff on chicken pot pie.  I made the "stuffing" of the pie, following this this recipe from allrecipes. 

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1 cup frozen diced carrots
• 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken meat

1. In a large saucepan, saute chopped onion in the butter.
2. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat and slowly add chicken broth and milk. Stir well. 
4. Return to heat.  Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Cook for 2 minutes.
5. Season with salt and pepper. Add frozen peas and carrots and cooked chicken.  Cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring often.

Instead of using a pie crust, I made biscuits using a previously posted recipe.  This time I made some tweaks.  I used a very small amount of all-purpose flour.  And, no, I am not proud of it...but just the tiniest amount of all-purpose flour gives whole wheat baked goods a much more desireable texture. 

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup cold unsalted butter
• 1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. In a medium sized bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix well with whisk or fork.
4. Cut the ½ stick butter into little pea sized pieces and then mix the pieces into the flour mixture. Using a fork, try to mash the butter pieces as you mix it together with the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. It is okay if the outcome just looks like the same pea sized pieces of butter covered with flour.
5. Then pour in the milk and mix it all together.
6. Knead the dough with your hands 8 to 10 times and then turn out onto a counter or cutting board.
7. Pat it out flat with your hands until the dough is a somewhat even ¾-inch thickness (sprinkle with a little flour if necessary). Turn a drinking glass upside down and cut out biscuit rounds.
8. Then put them on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 10 – 12 minutes or until lightly browned.


I served the chicken biscuits with swiss chard.  Never heard of swiss chard?  I hadn't until our CSA started giving it to us every.single.week.  This is what it you want to look for in the grocery store.

Remove the stalks and chop the leaves.

Sauteed Swiss Chard

• olive oil
• chopped/minced garlic
• swiss chard
• balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper
• parmesan cheese

1.  Saute the garlic in the olive oil for 2 minutes.
2.  Add swiss chard and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes.  While cooking drizzle balsamic vinegar over swiss chard.
3.  Season with salt and pepper.  Grate fresh parmesan over the swiss chard.

OK, so I know you're looking at this picture and thinking, "Heids McGhee, there is no way that my minis are eating that."  Well, I say, do what I do.  Set the plate in front of them and when they start to protest, shoot them your best mama-means-business stank eye.  Don't have a mama-means-business stank eye?  You've got bigger problems than swiss chard!