GCC: Menu 30 - Chicken Pot Pie

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I think our fellow Raymond is reminiscing a bit his childhood with the options he has given us while hosting this months Gutsy Cook menus.  Not that I mind one bit.  Seriously, who can say no to chicken pot pie?

I usually don’t, specially when I go and order it in any restaurant that has it on the menu.  I have been holding off in making it at home, because it just seems like a long difficult dish to make.

But, I’m going to prove to you how wrong I was on that assumption and tell you that in less than 1 hour you can serve this to your family.  First the recipe is made with puff pastry and not pie crust, so you can just go out to the supermarket and get one of those frozen packages, that are just as good a homemade but without the hours upon hours of preparing it.  And while you are there, stop by your supermarket deli and pick up a roast chicken.

See? The most difficult time consuming part of the recipe is DONE.

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Quick Apple Galette

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The thing with fruit desserts?  Having fruit left over because most of the recipes call for medium apples, but my supermarket does not know the difference between size, they are all big.

So I got leftover.

I hate to throw food away.

Even fruit.

And trust me I been so tempted of late.  I’m pretty over anything that has to do with apples.

But, I cannot do it – yes, call me wimpy.

So, here I was thinking, what to do with all of this left over apples, that I did not use in the future mother in law birthday cake a couple of weeks back.

And as I was thinking there, I started to crave a cookie.

Stay with me, there is a relationship in here.

So, I look over at Tom and asked him to pass me the pack of Galleta Maria, [Marie biscuit] for me to munch on.  And as I was looking at the package the name “galleta”, which means biscuit in Spanish made me think of the French “galettes”

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Sweet Kitchen Tips 11

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And since I got myself on the road to pie making here is a couple of tricks that I found make things much easier.  Trial and error folks, the best teacher.

The first thing I learn was that sometimes even the most planned mixing can leave your dough too dry and crumbly (refer to the empanada post and you know will know what I’m talking about) when you start to roll it out.  But, the cardinal rule to pie making - DON’T OVERWORK THE DOUGH, meaning, the less you mix the better it will be.  So what to do? 

Get yourself a spray bottle full of ice water, and use it to sprint the dough when you need a bit more to make it soft.  This method distributes just the right amount making it unlikely you will add to much.

and if you are rolling along …

and your dough often sticks to the counter, adding more flour is not the best solution, since it can actually make the dough tough.  Instead, slide a pastry scraper under the dough every 30 seconds or so.  This way the dough never has a chance to stick, and it won’t tear when you need to move it.  If you don’t have a pastry scraper, you can use a metal ruler, which works just as well.

or you can go the route sandwich route…

Roll out the dough between sheets of parchment or plastic wrap paper.  And if your sandwiched package starts to roll away from you in the counter, place a nonstick silicone mat underneath to hold it in place and give you an additional smooth, stable rolling surface.