GranNini's Chicken (or turkey?) Pot Pie

GranNini's Chicken Pot Pie

(works great with leftover turkey, too!)

Ingredients:

2 unbaked pie crusts

2 chicken breasts, thawed and cubed

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 large carrots, diced

3 large potatoes (red or yellow), peeled and cubed

6 mushrooms, sliced

2 Tablespoons butter (unsalted)

1/3 to 1/2 cup frozen peas

Gravy:

3 Tablespoons flour

3 Tablespoons butter (unsalted)

1 1/2 to 2 Cups Chicken (or turkey) broth

Seasonings to taste:  I add ginger, salt, pepper, and Lawry's seasoned salt

Directions:

Prepare two pie crusts, but do not bake them yet.  Put one pie crust into a pie plate, and set the other pie crust aside.

For a great recipe, click here: GranNini's Pie Crust.

Set the oven to 400 degrees.  Take a fork and stab your pie crust (the one in the pie plate) several times.  Fork-stabbing will help prevent your crust from bulging out when it bakes.  Bake your pie crust for 15 minutes.  Set your baked crust on a cooling rack while you prepare the rest of your pie. 

Fill a medium saucepan with water and place it on high until the water boils.  Once the water boils, add in the carrots & potatoes, and boil for 8 minutes.  Then add in frozen peas and boil for 4 minutes more.  Drain, and set aside.

Sauté the mushrooms in a large sauté pan with 2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter until the mushrooms are golden brown. Pour them onto a plate or bowl.

Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to the sauté pan and heat on medium high.  Add in the crushed garlic.  Add in the chicken and sauté until chicken is golden brown.  Add in onions until they soften.  Pour chicken and onions into a bowl.

Make the gravy in the sauté pan.  Turn the temperature down to medium.  Add in 3 Tablespoons of butter and let melt completely.  Gently sprinkle 3 Tablespoons of flour across the pan and use a whisk to stir them together, creating a roux.  Slowly add in chicken broth, whisking continuously until all the liquid has been added, and the gravy is the right consistency.  Sprinkle in ginger, salt, pepper, and Lawry's seasoned salt to taste.  

Pour chicken, onions and mushrooms back into pan and stir.  Slowly add in the potatoes, carrots and peas, and stir so that the gravy coats everything.

Pour all of the ingredients into the awaiting pie crust.

Drape the second, uncooked pie crust over the top of your bubbly pie goodness.  Crimp the edges together.  Use a sharp knife to slice two or three slits in the top pie crust to aid in 'venting.'  Or poke a few holes.  Whichever you prefer.  If you have a left over kabob skewer, they have pointy ends, and work GREAT at poking wee little holes in unbaked pie dough.

Bake your pie at 400 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the crust is a light golden brown, and the insides are bubbly and your house smells yummy.

Serve while hot.  But make sure to blow on your food when it's on your fork.  Your pie will smell so yummy that you'll want to pop the entire forkful in your mouth while it's piping hot, and you'll inevitably burn your tongue or the roof of your mouth if you don't cool it off just a wee bit.  

Trust me on this one.

Enjoy!!

Pictures below.

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 Sautéing the mushrooms until they're golden.

 Boiling veggies.  I haven't added the peas in yet.

 Mmmmm.  Gravy goodness.

 Unbaked pie.  Almost there!

All done!! Yummy yummy, to my tummy!

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GranNini's Simple Pie Crust

A good pie crust is essential for any yummy pie.  Pie crusts can be tricky, but with a few simple suggestions, you can make a pie crust without too much hassle!

GranNini's Pie Crust

1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) of Crisco

3/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup ice water

Directions:

In a large bowl, use a pastry knife to cut the Crisco with the salt and flour until the entire bowl resembles crumbs.  Slowly (!) and just a little at a time, drizzle in the ice water until the crumbs just stick together.  Once you have a lovely ball of dough, let the ball rest for 15 minutes.  This would be a great time for you to make the tasty innards for your pie!

  Next:  Lightly flour a large, clean surface area.  Plunk your ball o'dough in the center of your floured surface.  Lightly flour your rolling pin.  Then roll out your dough so that it's ever so slightly larger than your pie plate.  

Next:  Flip your pie crust in half, settle your pie plate onto your surface area right next to the pie crust, and then flip the pie crust back onto your pie plate.  I never mastered the art of rolling the pie crust up and onto my rolling pin, so I just flip it up in half, and then plunk it back down onto the pie plate.  Works for me.

Trim your edges, leaving about an inch around the outer edge of your pie plate.  Gently tuck the edge of the pie crust under the pie plate, leaving a little rim of pie crust around the edge.  Then use your fingers to make pretty edging, and voila!  You're done!

If you want to decorate the top of your pie, gently press together the remaining dough into a ball, roll out, and then cut into fun shapes. Use a dab of water, or a wee bit of egg wash, to press the decorations onto the top of your crust.

If you don't want to bother with decorating the top of your pie, because you're just going to smother it in whipped cream, then by all means, try making snickerdoodles out of your remaining pie crusts.  Mmmm. Snickerdoodles.

Helpful Hints:

*I use Crisco cubes.  They're called Crisco Baking Sticks, but essentially look like butter or margarine cubes, wrapped in tin foil and put into plastic tubs.  I used to use Crisco in a tub, but it gets my hands all greasy.  Blech.  I've also used butter, oil, margarine, and a combination of all three.  Crisco, I've found, is much less persnickety than the rest. So if you're just starting out, and need a much less fussy crust, go for the Crisco.  If you're feeling up to the challenge,  feel free to use butter (chilled and then cut into wee pieces) instead of Crisco.  I do not recommend oil or margarine because for me, they just don't turn into good crusts.

* Do not over-water, but don't hesitate to add as much water as it takes to get your crumbs to stick together.  Too little water makes your dough crumby, making it a challenge to roll out.  Too much, and your dough can end up gummy. 

* Make sure that your rolling pin is gently floured.  If your dough is a little sticky, and some of the pie crust ends up sticking to your rolling pin, simply add a little flour, scrape down the sides of your rolling pin with your fingers, and add a wee bit more flour.

Pictures:

For those of you who prefer pictures to go along with your recipes, here are you go!!

Dry ingredients look like crumbs

Add just enough water.  Too much will make dough sticky & gummy.  Not enough will make it hard to stick together and roll out.  You can ALWAYS add MORE water.  So drizzle it in just a wee bit a time.

Don't forget to flour your rolling pin.

A lovely perfect ball o'dough.  Let it sit for 15 minutes before rolling it out.

After I roll out this far, I usually flip it 90 degrees and roll out the other way.

Done rolling!

Flip the dough up onto itself and tuck your pie plate right up next to the dough.

Lift up the middle / seam of the dough to the edge of your pie plate
and flip the other half of your crust over.

Nicely done!  Now trim up your edges so that they're about 1/2 as long as they are in this pic.

Gently tuck under the edge of the dough.

(The left part of this pic shows the tucked under part, the right half shows the untucked part.)

Tuck, tuck, tuck.

Make a pretty design around the edge by using two fingers to pull in, while your other hand pulls out.

1/2 way there.

All done!!

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So who is Granini?

So who is Granini?

When I finished my first murder mystery book, I had the crazy idea to take one of my characters -- Granini (pronounced Gruh-NEE-NEE), and give her an even larger presence in the world.  This part of my blog is my first attempt at getting her fabulousness out there.

Granini, in my head, is a perfect melting between several of my childhood beloved characters:

1.  Mrs. Santa Claus
2. the Mother Nature as portrayed on my much adored "The Year Without A Santa Claus" by Rankin / Bass
3. Granny -- the Loony Tunes cartoon who takes care of Tweety Bird and shoos away Sylvester the cat
4. my favorite Auntie who in real life lives up in Alaska and has a huge brood of her own to tend for
5. and an ideal version of the most fabulous day care provider/baker/cook/vet who loves and adores babies, children, pets, and all grown-up strays who need a little extra mama-lovin.  

In real life, Granini is an ideal version of who I hope to grow up to be.

In my books, Granini is Jack Diamond's grandmother.  She raises Jack and his brother after The Incident, and serves as the positive loving influence that is desperately lacking in their lives.  When she isn't writing her much beloved children's stories, you can probably find her either tending her garden, visiting with one of her 'strays,' or baking up something ever so tasty in her kitchen.

One day I hope to put together an entire cookbook of Granini's recipes, as well as to write up many of Granini's children's stories and publish those as well.  Granini is very supportive of Jack Diamond and his adventures, and hopes that you will love him as much as she does.

Until then, I am sharing several of her family recipes, along with her helpful hints as to how to make some of these simple recipes easier.

Oh, and for those of you who've been meandering about on my blog and have found Granini spelled GranNini, well, yeah.  So my kiddo out-ruled me, and now I've had to go about and try to re-do all my previously afore-entitled GranNini posts to Granini.  Yes, it's easier, perhaps.  However, I do worry ever so slightly about how people might mispronounce her name.  Rather like I did when first reading Hermione Granger's name in Harry Potter.  Alas.  Granini is pronounced Gruh-NEE-NEE, and she is truly my most beloved version of myself.

I hope you enjoy!!!

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p.s.  By the way, Granini is pronounced Gruh-NEE-NEE.  In case you couldn't figure that one out on your own.

p.p.s. My first murder mystery manuscript, Diamonds for Diamond has been published!  You can buy it here:

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In Eager Anticipation...

For any of you who are reading my blog (thanks!), just wanted to send along a preview of the posts that are coming up!

So I've been working madly on the side (hence the neglected blog), trying to get my folks all set up for their upcoming move (future posts will be focused on how to downsizing for seniors, documenting your mementos that can't come with you, planning for the packing process, etc.), working on their massive photo project (digitally organizing photos and mementos and some genealogy research as well), getting ready for the upcoming publication of my first book (yay!  oooh, the suspense!!  More on that later too), another lovely surgery and ever-so-long recovery to look forward to, college tours, and putting together a massive amount of recipes and how-tos when it comes to baking and cooking for GranNini's posts (many posts there -- such as, "Who is GranNini" and how can I get recipes for that FABULOUSLY looking deliciousness), not to mention some shenanigans regarding the skunk, the two o'possums, and the raccoon who were all apparently living under my house.  Well, the o'possums were just in it for the marshmallows.  But can you blame them? Suspense, folks.  Got to keep y'all in suspense!

For the next several months, you can expect to see many great posts!  Until then, I must dash. The laundry is calling.

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