Yummy Chicken Pie

First, thank you for your kind comments yesterday and noticing my absence from food blogging. I'm starting to feel more like me with food, but still eating pretty bland and still not cooking as much as I like to. So yes, my blogging will be pretty random still for a while. We've also just moved houses and spent a lot of time picking up food and popping things into the oven. Topping off my busy life, I'm back at work after the summer break and my oldest has started school. He's very excited and loving kindergarten. More on that over at Kristen's Contemplations. Now onto the recipe!
My husband is English originally and grew up on meat pies. I did not. And I didn't really get what he was talking about. Each time we've visited his relatives in England he's happily eat his meat pies and talk about how much he loves them and still I didn't clue in. So we've been married for over 7 years and now I've finally made him his first meat pie.

There are 2 steps to making a good chicken pie - the pastry part and the filling part. You could buy pre-made pie pastry and save yourself some time. I made a 2 crust pie pastry recipe the night before.

2 crust pie pastry

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
2-3 tbsp cold water

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Cut in the shortening using a pastry cuttter until the mixture is crumbly (about the size of peas). Sprinkle with cold water and use a fork to moisten the dough.
Divide the pastry into 2 parts. Gather each part into a ball. Roll out separately into 2 flattened rounds. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least half an hour (if you make it the day before like I did, remove the pastry before you need it to soften it and roll it out flat.

The filling part

1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
2/3 cup milk
1 cup peas (I thawed from frozen)
3 carrots, peeled and cut into small pieces
2-3 cups chopped cooked chicken (this is one of those great recipes where a store bought rotisserie chicken comes in handy)

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour, onion, salt and pepper and cook until bubbly. Remove from heat and add the chicken broth and milk. Whisk it all together . Add carrots and peas. Put the saucepan back on the heat and heat until boiling. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat. Add chicken and set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 425*.

Roll out pastry. Ease into 9x9x2 pan (I used a corningware casserole dish instead and it worked just as well. Pour chicken mixture into the dish. Cover with the remaining pastry.

Bake for 35 minutes, serve and enjoy!

Sweet Potato Salad

At the beginning of the summer we went to our church picnic. Everyone is asked to bring some sort of salad. One of them was the most delicious potato salad I'd ever had. The problem was, I didn't know who brought it and couldn't get the recipe. A few weeks later, we were at a Canada Day BBQ at a friend's place, the same salad was being served. My friend Erin was the creator of this masterpiece. I asked what she did and got a couple of ideas to make something similar. I have yet to get it as perfect as hers, but this one was pretty good.

2 sweet potatoes
6 small/medium potatoes
1 small onion
6 eggs
1/2 cup coleslaw dressing
salt and pepper to taste
parsley to sprinkle

Peel sweet potatoes and potatoes and cut into cubes (Erin makes her cubes a lot smaller than mine). Boil until soft. Boil eggs until hard boiled. Dice onion.
Cool potatoes and eggs. Remove shells from eggs and slice or dice, depending how you like them in your salad.
Mix everything together in a salad bowl. Sprinkle with parsley to decorate.

Chicken Quesadillas

These are my very plain version of chicken quesadillas. They can be spiced up and revved up with veggies, but baby's not having any part of it right now. They were still very tasty (and loved by my kids which was wonderful!)

2 chicken breasts, cubed
1 can of chickpeas
1/4 cup sour cream
(optional 1/4 cup salsa)
(optional - chopped veggies - peppers, onions...of your choice)
1 cup Monteray Jack Cheese
8 flour tortillas

Pre-heat oven to 300*. While the oven is heating, fry the cubed chicken meat in a little bit of oil until browned and cooked inside. Set aside. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Place them into a mixing bowl. Add sour cream. Using a hand blender, blend until somewhat smooth. (Add salsa to the mixture and mix in if using). Take out 2 cookie sheet. Place 2 tortillas on each. Spread 1/4 of the chickpea mixture onto each tortlla, until each tortilla is covered. Divide the chicken evenly amongst the tortillas as well. (Add veggies if using). Grate the Jack cheese over each tortilla. Cover with another tortilla. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, allowing the cheese to melt and the totillas to crisp up (watch they don't burn!). Remove from oven. Use a large knife or a pizza cutter to cut into 4 or 8 wedges per tortilla 'sandwich'. Serve with salsa, sour cream or guacamole.

Eating in PEI

We vacationed once more on PEI this summer. Quick, what do you think of when you think of PEI? Anne of Green Gables? Lobster? Mussels? Oysters? Potatoes? All of the above? None of the above? Maybe you aren't even sure where I'm talking about...
PEI stands for Prince Edward Island. It is Canada's smallest province and sits in the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of New Brunswick (where I live) and Nova Scotia. You can get to PEI by ferry (from Nova Scotia) or via Confederation Bridge (from New Brunswick). Confederation Bridge is one of the world's longest bridges (12.9 km).
PEI is known for 2 things, tourism and food. They are great at both. Most of the island (it seems)is covered in potatoes. The waters surrounding the island have are some of the best seafood waters in the world. I have a love for both potatoes and seafood, so we're all good.
The campgrounds we stayed in are very close to the tiny community of Malapeque. Malapeque Bay harvest some of the finest oysters in the world (and ships all over). (http://www.aquaculturepei.com/pei_cultured_oysters.php). I was tricked into trying an oyster shot last year (not my thing) but my husband loves them! You take the raw oyster, open it up (with an oyster shucker), add a little lemon juice and seafood sauce and shoot it down. Here he goes:


More to my liking is one of Canada's best ice cream places, Cows. Not only does it have wonderful ice cream, it has a great clothing/souvenir line that parodies popular music, movies and TV featuring cows. Lightening Mooqueen, Cows in the City, CSI (Cow Scene Investigator)...you get the idea. (http://www.cows.ca/index.php)



Yes we bought him a replacement, in a cup this time :o)

Something we wanted to do last year, but didn't and made sure to do this year was visit the Cheese Lady. The Cheese Lady originally comes from the Netherlands. She used to make cheese for friends as a side in Amsterdam and brought some of her starter over when she immigrated to Canada. Specializing in Gouda (and every sort of Gouda you can imagine) she makes her cheese on site from milk from her cows. She supplies to local farmers markets on the Island.


Back to the seafood. Do you know what it's like to go to PEI pregnant and therefore limited as to which seafood you can eat? No lobster, no smoked salmon, no shellfish...(okay, I snuck a few mussels, because let's face it - they are mussels! Yum!) . PEI supplies 70% of the world's mussels. We went on a boat cruise one afternoon and saw rows and rows of mussel nets (more like netted socks than big nets). The originally catch the mussels as baby mussels in the netting and grow them until they are ready for consumption - it takes up to 2 years. You can read more about mussel fishing here http://www.aquaculturepei.com/pei_mussel_industry.php


Of course you can't not mention lobster fishing when you are talking PEI. The fishing season was over in the parts of the water we were at (still open in other parts as the lobster migrated), but our boat cruise had an educational trap set out. We caught two. Too bad we had to throw them back :o)

Well, that about wraps up my little food tour of PEI. I hope you get to visit there one day :o) It's a really beautiful spot and a lot of fun!

Food For Thought - My Favorite Restaurants

Good morning everyone!
I want to try out a new weekly meme brought to you by Whatcha Eatin'? If any of you are gifted in making buttons to link us all together I'd love to know how to do that :o) I'm calling it Food for Thought. Each week I'm going to introduce a food related topic for anyone who wants to to participate in. If you do decide to join in all I ask is that you write on the week's topic, link back to the original post and make sure you put your post up in that week's Mr. Linky. This is my first time trying something like this out so any suggestions and idea you have, please message me in my comments. I'd love to hear from you.
Onto this week's topic:
I've been inspired by a recent visit to Charlottetown, PEI. The whole reason (and I'm not kidding you on this one) that we picked PEI instead of Nova Scotia for our vacation this year was so my husband could go to Sirenella for dinner one night. Sirenella is an authentic Italian restaurant. They make their pasta on site and use recipes that the owner brought over with him from Northern Italy. It is extemely good eating.
It got me thinking about restaurants that I truly love. You know what I mean, places that if you are in that city, you have to go to because you appreciate the food so much. I know all of you have places like this and because we all cook we know what it takes to make food that good!
So where are your best places to eat? What makes them so special? It can be a restaurant or cafe anywhere in the world, but it has to be memorable to you!
Here's my top 8:

8. Pecos Bill in Glendale, CA - I had to check that this place was still around. An old friend of my Dad's introduced us to this when I was a kid. It has the best BBQ Beef Sandwiches ever.
7. Thai Hut in Saint John, NB - my craving for Pad Thai is fulfilled here, great takeout!
6. Benito II in New York City, NY - My husband visits here every year when he takes a mission team to NY for the week. It's in Little Italy and extremely delicious!
5. Mo's in Oregon - amazing clam chowder, a visit to the Oregon Coast isn't complete without it :o)
4. Sirenella in Charlottetown, PEI
3. Suwanna in Saint John, NB - I still cannot believe the city I live in has Thai food this good. Set in an old home on the west side you have to reserve to get a table for the night. It is worth the experience. Everything is good. We often order many dishes and share around the table.
2. Pagliacci's in Victoria, BC - Known to me as Pag's when I was at University, I would go here at 5 when it opened for seating (or else face the huge line later) - they don't do reservations. Great house salad and wonderful, interesting pastas.
1. Nick's in Vancouver, BC - Nick's has been a family favorite for years and years and years. I remember eating here when I was a little girl and now when I go back west for a visit we have to make a stop here. It's just a good old fashioned spagetti house. Nothing has changed in the 40 plus years that it has been around, and for good reason. My husband came here with me just to shut me up from hearing about it, now I think he talks about it more than me!

My Dear Foodie Friends

I have some apologies to make and explanations for my blogging (or lack of it) the past few months. Since late June, my participation on your blogs has been severely limited and my blog posts few and far between (even enlisting my husband to post for me). The explanation is fairly simple, I'm pregnant :o) I'm now 14 weeks along and the heartbeat has been picked up which is why I feel I can let you all in on it.
The cruel twist to me being pregnant is that I get very, very sick when I'm pregnant. My diet is extremely plain, (I'm pretty much living on grilled cheese sandwiches) and the thought of most food which I previously loved turns my stomach extraordinarily. Anything with onion, garlic, peppers, beef, tomatoes...(okay I'm getting nauseous just writing it down so I'll stop)...basically anything with flavour is not agreeable to me. So that lovely BBQ my husband wrote about? I ate the plain tortellini from the pasta salad before he added stuff to it, that was it. Out of love for my 5 year old I made spagetti one night and then proceeded to my room for the rest of the evening sipping caffeine free root-beer trying to rid myself of any trace of the smell of it. Basically, I love all that you post, but right now, you're making me sick :o), but I'm really happy about it!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I had this huge craving for pineapple upside down cake last week and while I was on Cheryl's site (Cooking Dunkin Style)there was a link within to her pineapple upside down cake. I adapted it a little, but stayed pretty true to her recipe.
While I was making this I was reminded of cooking over the campfire for Girl Guides. Did anyone else make pineapple upside down cake in a can back then? This one is much more sophisticated I'm sure :o)

1st - heat up the stove to 350 - melt margarine or butter in your cake pan (round is best) (a few spoonfuls) add brown sugar and smooth together over the bottom of the pan (another few spoonfuls). Take out of the oven and set aside until later.

In a mixing bowl mix together the following:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened - I used margarine
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk
Mix all the wet ingredients together first and then add the dry
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1st - add pinapple rings to the bottom of the cake pan. Set a marichino cherry inside each if you wish.
2nd - pour the cake batter over top and spread out evenly.
3rd- Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes, run a thin knife around the edge, and invert the cake onto a plate.

*I used a spring-form cake pan when making this. I recommend setting it on top of a
baking sheet as some of the margarine leaked out a bit when melting. If you do use one of these, just let the cake cool for 15 minutes and then turn over onto a plate, release the triggers to let the cake out.