Making Chicken Pot Pie... Healthy

Now that it's coming to the end of summer (actually, it's more like me day dreaming about fall), I've been craving yummy fall and winter comfort food.  I don't know about you, but chicken pot pie falls under the comfort food category for me. But eating comfort food everyday isn't realistic for staying slim, right? Wrong! I made over my family's chicken pot pie, and made it into something that you can eat weekly! I'm sure you can eat it daily too, but what fun is that?

I didn't see the reason to make a big pie, considering I would be the only one eating it. So I came up with a single serving recipe, in which I used a 5 inch wide souffle (ramekin, corning ware, etc) dish. To cut calories I used vegetable spread in place of butter, and cut out the bottom crust, only using the crust to cover the top.

Onto the recipe!

Ingredients

Pie Crust

4 tbsp flour

1 tbsp vegetable spread (i.e. I can't believe it's not butter), roughly 50 calories per TBSP

1 tsp cold Water

Filling

 chicken breast (I used about 3 and a half ounce of chicken)

1 cup water (you may need to add or take, depending on how much liquid you want)

1 small potato, diced

1 carrot, sliced

1 celery, sliced

1 tbsp diced onion

Thickener
Half a tbsp vegetable spread
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp milk (I used 1%)
1 tsp flour
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp corn starch

Pie Crust
Cut the butter into the flour, add water and mix. Wrap in plastic wrap and put dough in the fridge to harden the butter.

Filling
In a pot, bring water to a boil, and add the rest of the ingredients. Bring down to a simmer, and cover for about an hour. Take out the chicken and cut into bite sized pieces, add back to the pot. (Add salt, use your own preference)

Thickener
Make a roux with the flour, milk and butter and add to the filling. Bring the filling back to a boil and add cornstarch, boiling for one minute. You want the filling to be about gravy thick, or thicker if you want. Also use your own judgement, because you might have to take out some of the liquid before adding the thickeners. Pour the filling into souffle dish. Now here is were you can either stop and put the filling in the fridge, or continue with baking the pie.

Crust
Roll out the dough into between to pieces of plastic wrap or wax paper (I used plastic wrap, it worked). You want the dough to be about the size of the dish your baking in, maybe slightly bigger. Cover the dish with your dough, and place the dish on a small pan to catch any drippings.

Baking
Preheat over to 425 degrees. Cut a small slit in the middle of the crust, and sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake for ten minutes, turn the oven down to 350 and bake for an additional 10 - 12 minutes more.

Enjoy!



Nutrition Facts





Calories 457.9
Total Fat 9.5 g
Saturated Fat 2.8 g

Polyunsaturated Fat 4.3 g

Monounsaturated Fat 2.6 g

Cholesterol 58.3 mg

Sodium 254.3 mg

Total Carbohydrate 60.0 g

Dietary Fiber 4.2 g

Sugars 3.2 g

Protein 29.4 g

Turtle that was outside!

Yo Gabba Gabba! Birthday Cake

For my nephew's birthday, I made a Brobee cake. For the cake I made a usual snow white, and then used homemade fondant for the decorating.

Ina Garten for All! Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes

Awhile back, I was watching Ina Garten on the Food Network and I saw she made these delicious cupcakes. I decided to try out the recipe and it turned out delicious! I put my own spin on them, and added some cute heart brownies to decorate them.  The recipe was easy, and I would not skip the coffee. I don't like coffee myself, but it does bring out the taste of chocolate real nicely.

Of course I didn't have any chocolate syrup, so I made my own. I also didn't have any heavy cream, but made my own with a mixture of milk, butter, and flour.

Ingredients


1/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
11 fluid ounces Hershey's chocolate syrup
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules

For the ganache:

1/2 cup heavy cream
8 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Directions


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in the chocolate syrup and vanilla. Add the flour and coffee granules and mix until just combined. Don't overbeat, or the cupcakes will be tough.

Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 30 minutes, or until just set in the middle. Don't overbake! Let cool thoroughly in the muffin pan. (I changed this and took them out right away)

For the ganache, cook the heavy cream, chocolate chips, and instant coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally.

Dip the tops of the cupcakes into the ganache. Do not refrigerate.

(Recipe from Food Network)

Back For More!

I'm back! After a long break from posting, I decided I will once again shower the world with my creations!

Aren't they the cutest?

For July 4 my family celebrated my two sisters birthday who's birthdays happen to fall around independence day. I, now being known as the cupcake girl, volunteered (insisted) I would make cupcakes and cakeballs.
For those of you who don't know what cake balls are, they are the most heavenly confection.
This is where I originally heard of them, and ever since I (and everyone around me) have fallen in love.

Snow White Cupcakes

For the cupcakes, I made 24 snow white (vanilla with no egg whites) cupcakes, and around 30 black magic cupcakes. Of course what fun are cupcakes without decorating them? I seriously recommend the books Hello Cupcake and What's New Cupcake? I used a design from one of the books for the vanilla cupcakes, and I made up my own for the chocolate cupcakes.

Black Magic Cupcakes

The weather for the day I decorated them was terrible! The icing was pretty much melting, and it wouldn't keep a shape. But I forged on, and had to change some of the decorating. All in all it turned out pretty good, along with the 84 cake balls I made.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Here is the Black Magic Cake recipe, I used my normal vanilla  icing.