Guaranteed kid-pleaser

And the winner is….chicken pot pie!

(I’m watching the pizza challenge on food network because there is nothing on ESPN except the NBA draft and freakin’ MLL Lacrosse. I don’t know WTF MLL stands for, nor do I care, and all I know about lacrosse is Duke and strippers. It’s baseball season, dammit! Give me baseball!)

Anyway, I resorted to a tried and true kid-friendly dish — chicken pot pie. Nothing particularly gourmet about it. Just good solid comfort food, made with some short-cut timesavers that make it a pretty simple dish to make.

What timesavers, you ask?

First, I use rolled, refrigerated pie crusts from the dairy case at the grocery. I go ahead and pay the buck-a-set extra and use the Pillsbury because they’re better. They are, in fact, better than what I make, because pie crust is  not among my strong points. And I’m a believer that if the store-bought version is as good as or better than I’m going to make, I’ll damn sure let the Doughboy make my pie crusts.

And I’ll let Green Giant cook my mixed veggies for me. I’ve done chicken pot pies with leftover dibs and dabs of veggies from the fridge, and that’s well and good, because it’s generally fresh stuff I’ve cooked. But I didn’t have such tonight, so I grabbed a couple of cans of standby ones out of the pantry. (I keep ‘em on hand for vegetable soup and chicken pot pie, which I generally always have the makings for, so if I get desperate for dinner and just don’t freakin’ want to leave the house, I can make something passably good.) And I used Sweet Sue canned white chunk chicken, for much the same reason, plus I had a boatload of the stuff because I found it on sale for a buck a can.

My one concession to my escalating taste criteria is that I will no longer use canned cream of chicken soup. Rather, I make up a cup of chicken broth with Orrington Farms chicken stock base, which bears about as much resemblance to chicken buillion as a minnow does to a piranha, and I make a light roux with butter, add the stock, add the broth out of the two cans of chicken, and add about a cup of grated cheese; et viola, bechamel with cheese. It all goes together and into the oven at 375, until the crust is golden.  And then it gets inhaled, which it did so quickly I didn’t get a photo taken of it.

Anyway, the recipe:

• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup grated cheese (I generally use co-jack, since I usually have it on hand)
• 2 6 1/2 ounce cans canned chunk white chicken (or one chicken breast, poached in chicken broth, skinned, deboned and shredded. If you do that, you can use the same stock you’re going to use with the canned chicken, and just add more water)
• 2 15-oz cans mixed vegetables, drained
• 2 rolled Pillsbury pie crusts, or your own, if you’re ambitious

Melt the butter in saucepan, cook the flour in it until a light golden roux. Add the chicken broth. Cook until it begins to thicken. Add cheese. If you need to at this point, add a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed in a bit of the sauce. Remove from heat after it thickens well, add the veggies and chicken, and mix well. Place one pie crust in a deep-dish pan, fill with mixture, and top with the other crust; crimp the edges and stab it with a paring knife to make some steam vents. Put it on a cookie sheet to bake in a 375 degree oven for around 30-40 minutes, until crust is golden.

Can’t beat it, I’m telling you. I’ve not seen the kid yet that didn’t do double back flips for it. Including my new temporary son. I think he’s forgiven me the egg rolls.

Had to go into Little Rock for a meeting today, and some friends took me out to lunch for my birthday afterward. I got to pick the restaurant, so I went with Brave New Restuarant, where I’d never been for lunch but have always loved when I went there for dinner. It didn’t disappoint. I had the lunch combo, a cup of soup, a half sandwich, and a small Caesar, because those people do the best Caesar dressing on the planet.

The soup was a five-onion soup, which I think referred to how many kinds of onions were in it; I was expecting something more French onion-y, and didn’t get it, but it was good, heavy on the Vidalias, as it should have been this time of year. Had some red sweet onions, some tiny white ones, some green onions, and I think a leek or two, all sauteed and then simmered in chicken broth. Good stuff, if somewhat plain, but it went nicely with their good sourdough bread.

The sandwich, on that same good bread, was a “not so traditional grilled cheese,” with Fontina, baby Swiss, bacon, shrimp and tomato. Never thought about putting them all together on a sandwich, but they’re all big favorites. Well….they play REAL well together. The shrimp, mediums, were peeled and grilled in something very mild — maybe just olive oil and a touch of salt and pepper.

And because it was my birthday, I had fresh strawberry sorbet for dessert. Little chunks of fresh strawberry that didn’t dissolve in the ice cream maker throughout. Sweet-tart. It may have been the best sorbet I ever had.

All in all, successful birthday meals. Even if there are no pics.

Tell y’mama ‘n ‘em the birthday girl said hey.