Chicken Pot Pie, Southern Living Cookbook

I have always loved pot pies, but my hubby has never been a fan of them, mostly because he hates peas, which are always a staple in pot pies, and he's never had a "good" pot pie, so he says they're just filled with "pea swill". Since I haven't had a pot pie in years I've been craving them, so decided to find a home made recipe and make them. 

I found this CHICKEN POT PIE recipe in the  Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. I used the pie crust recipe from this cookbook instead of my own cookbook, and it was a good pie crust recipe. I made these into 3 small pies instead of 1 regular pie. Each of the pies were large enough for two people. 

I thought the pie turned out really good. It really had a lot of chicken in it, which my husband liked. And here's the kicker, my hubby actually LIKED this pie. When I was making it, I told him I was making a pot pie from scratch and he was "going to like it", even though I pretty much knew he wouldn't. But, we were both surprised to find that he really liked it... a lot. He said he could see several peas in every bite and he kept thinking..... yuck, I'm going to taste peas.... yuck.... but he never could decipher or pick out the pea flavor, so he was pleasantly surprised. There were other vegetables in there as well.... corn, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms, along with the generous portion of chicken. And the sauce was made from scratch as well, and even had a little cheese in it. My hubby even told his Mom (who knows how much he hates peas), that I worked my magic on the peas and the pie and he loved it :) That really was the best compliment I could get, I was a happy camper, and still am :)

So this recipe is a definite keeper. My hubby says I can make pot pies again and he'll eat them, so I'll be happy to oblige :)

Kung Pao Chicken

I actually made this Kung Pao Chicken recipe a couple weeks ago, but have been a bit behind on posting my meals, so hope to get caught up here in the next week.

This recipe came from The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. This recipe was pretty good, but not nearly as spicy as Kung Pao Chicken typically is, it was quite tame. As a matter of fact, my hubby said it was "Kung Chicken" without the "Pao". However, the flavors were ok, it just needed much more spice and kick. I think it also needed to be more saucy. I would have increased the amount of sauce in it, and probably would have doubled the spice in it to give it more kick. It also looks pretty bland in the way of presentation.

It was ok, but could have been better. I will probably try to find a different recipe if I want to make Kung Pao Chicken in the future.

Chocolate Lava Cakes with Pistachio Cream

A bit delayed, but here are our favorite recipes for February 2011, and a featured recipe.

There were several recipes that we really liked last month, and it was difficult to pick just one favorite recipe.

My favorite recipe for the month was the Linguine with Two Sauces. Brian had a hard time picking just one recipe. What he really liked was the whole Valentine's Dinner that I made. When I asked him to pick his one favorite "recipe" he couldn't come up with one, he liked the main dishes together as a whole that I cooked on Valentine's Day, which included Pepper-Crusted Filet Mignon with Horseradish Cream, Roasted Asparagus with Balsamic-Shallot Butter, Rosemary Garlic Fingerling Potatoes (no recipe, I just do my own thing with those), and Steamed Lobster Tails (recipe found online somewhere). We also had a Heartthrob Salad, which we didn't like very much, and Chocolate Lava Cakes with Pistachio Cream for dessert, which we both liked very much. He finally said if he had to pick one recipe, he ended up choosing the Pear Dutch Baby Pancake because it was one complete dish in itself.

So in trying to come up with an agreement on one recipe that we both liked as much as the other, and one I know will be a great recipe for anyone to make, I've chosen the Chocolate Lava Cakes with Pistachio Cream to feature as the Recipe of the Month for February. So here's the recipe. This recipe comes from the Best of Cooking Light Cookbook, which can be purchased here. Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKES WITH PISTACHIO CREAM

• 1 cup shelled dry-roasted pistachios
• 1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 large eggs
• 5 large egg whites
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• Cooking spray
• 1 cup 2% reduced-fat milk
• Dash of salt
• Powdered sugar (optional)

1. Place pistachios in a food processor, and process until a crumbly paste forms (about 3 1/2 minutes), scraping sides of bowl once.
2. Place 1/4 cup pistachio butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, cocoa, eggs, and egg whites in top of a double boiler; stir well with a whisk. Add chocolate, cook over simmering water until chocolate melts and sugar dissolves (about 3 minutes). Remove from heat; add baking powder and vanilla. Stir with a whisk until smooth. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Chill 2 hours.
3. Place remaining 1/4 cup pistachio butter and 1/2 cup sugar in food processor; pulse 4 times or until combined. Add milk and salt; process until smooth. Strain mixture through a sieve into a small saucepan; discard solids. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 4 minutes or until thick. Remove from heat; pour into a bowl. Cover and chill.
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
5. Bake the cakes at 450 degrees for 9 minutes or until almost set (centers will not be firm). Let cool in pan for 5 minutes.
6. Invert each cake onto a dessert plate; drizzle about 2 teaspoons sauce over each serving. Garnish with powdered sugar, if desired.

Serves 12

Apple Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Taste of Home Cookbook

Since my family wanted me to stop cooking from the Best of Cooking Light I have just decided to pick different recipes from the hundreds of cookbooks I have on my shelves in my pantry and just find a recipe that sounds good and I have most of the ingredients for on hand.

Tonight, my first night in switching it up, I Apple Stuffed Chicken Breasts from the TASTE OF HOME COOKBOOK. Here is our evaluation of this dish...

APPLE STUFFED CHICKEN BREASTS, just ok...

As I mentioned the last time I made stuffed chicken breasts (Artichoke Stuffed Chicken Breasts) I struggle getting my stuffed chicken to look pretty like they do in pictures and at restaurants. I need to do a You Tube search to see if I can find a video to learn how to do it properly.

The chicken in this dish turned out very tender and was cooked properly, but the stuffing was a bit mushy and I could not taste any of the apple flavor. The sauce also got a little over browned as well. Adding the butter at the end helped, but I don't think it was supposed to be as brown as it was. The flavor of the sauce was good, however.

If I were to make this again I would probably make a couple changes to this dish. Instead of shredding the apple I would probably dice it so you had bigger pieces of apple and could recognize the apple flavor more prominently. And the bread crumbs were supposed to be soft bread crumbs. Maybe if the bread crumbs were dried bread crumbs it would not have been as mushy. And probably adding a little more apple juice and sherry to the sauce would have been a little better.

Overall it was a decent dish, but nothing memorable or one to rave about.

So the fact that I switched from cooking from the Best of Cooking Light to other recipes in other cookbooks isn't really going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. I think there will be some good dishes, some ok dishes, some dishes we really don't like, and some dishes we absolutely love no matter what cookbook I'm cooking from.

So I'll just cook whatever and share our experiences about them.

Day 30 of cooking from The Best of Cooking Light

Today was day 30 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT, and I made 3 dishes from this cookbook, which you can find out about by clicking on the links below...

Maple Walnut Muffins

Yellow Pepper Soup with Cilantro Puree

Enchiladas de Pollo (Chicken Enchiladas)

For the past couple of weeks I have been overrun by my family to stop cooking from this cookbook and pick a different cookbook. Since I have literally, hundreds of cookbooks, my daughter suggested that since I'm "The Cookbook Blogger" I should switch up cooking from a variety of cookbooks and change things up. I think after today's meal I am finally convinced.

In the sleeve of this cookbook it says:

Guaranteed Success

"You're guaranteed success with every recipe! Each recipe has been tested at least twice, often three or four times, in the Cooking Light Test Kitchens to ensure that not only are they supremely healthy, tasty, and easy to prepare, but that they also have the all-important "yum factor".

I told my husband this and after eating tonight's dinner he sarcastically said "the yum factor", NOT in a flattering way. And again asked me to find another cookbook to cook from.

Not that all the dishes in the cookbook are bad, far from it. Of the 58 recipes I've prepared out of this cookbook, there are only 2 dishes that I truly disliked. However, only a few recipes were delicious and had that "yum factor", and the rest have been just ok and mediocre.

And, many of the recipes are not easy to prepare. Some are, some are not. It often takes me 2 hours or more to get a dinner prepared.

I have hung in there for over a month, and have tried 58 recipes out of this cookbook, and I, too, am ready to retire this cookbook (for the time being) and delve into some of my other cookbooks and bring some variety, and better dishes, hopefully, to the table .

I am not sure which cookbook I'll move on to next, but I'll peruse through my cookbooks this week and come back with some fresh new dishes next week, from some other cookbooks.

From the Best of Cooking Light...

58 recipes down, 489 more to go, we'll see how many I get through over the next several years

Chicken Enchiladas, Enchiladas de Pollo

Day 30 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made Chicken Enchiladas (Enchiladas de Pollo) for dinner tonight. Here's our thoughts about this lighter version of the classic favorite recipe...

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS (ENCHILADAS de POLLO), just ok...

This recipe looked decent in the cookbook, and sounded good as well, but preparing these and then tasting them, was a disappointment.

Let's start with preparing them. You're supposed to prepare your corn tortillas by dipping them in boiling water instead of hot oil (lighter version, remember), but the first one I did fell apart because after just a few seconds it became so very mushy. Then I made all 8 of them and stacked them on a place to roll them up with the filling, but that was a bad idea as they all stuck together. Good thing I bought a package of 18 tortillas as I'd just lost my first 9 tortillas to the trash. I just barely dipped in the boiling water for a second or two, just barely enough to soften them, but they still would fall apart while I tried to roll the filling in them. Not a good start.

As with a number of the recipes in this cookbook, I had a hard time finding some ingredients. I could not find canned tomatillos in the grocery store, so I bought fresh tomatillos and used those instead. I don't think that made much of a difference in the recipe, so not a big deal, I just wanted to mention that some of the ingredients called for in this cookbook are difficult to find in regular grocery stores (I shop at Safeway, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Costco).

The sauce was fine, the flavor was good, but nothing stood out about it. When we went to eat them, however, they were pretty mushy, which I'm sure had to do with the fact that the tortillas were cooked in water instead of oil.

Overall, this was not a recipe I'll be repeating again.

58 recipes down, 489 more to go.

Yellow Pepper Soup with Cilantro Puree

Day 30 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made a Yellow pepper Soup with Cilantro Puree for one of the courses for our dinner tonight. Here's our thoughts on this recipe...

YELLOW PEPPER SOUP WITH CILANTRO PUREE, not good...

While I was preparing this recipe, which took a lot of prep to do, I kept saying "interesting" with the flavor combinations. But I'm open minded and willing to try new things. However, when I did try the final product, I was not pleased. I could only eat a few bites of this soup and the rest ended up down the garbage disposal.

My son in law felt the same way I did, my hubby thought it was just ok, but didn't even manage to eat half of his. Our daughter, on the other hand, liked it. I'm not sure if that was because she's been sick and has a stuffed up nose and her taste buds are off, or if she really liked it; she'd have to try it again when her pallate is up to snuff.

This is the recipe my hubby also mocked the cookbook cover saying it had that "yum factor", in a sarcastic tone. Not much else to say about this soup, it just was not good and not one I'd recommend or make again.

57 recipes down, 490 more to go.