Musings from the Threshold

Monthly Archives: April 2008

Laurel’s Chicken Pot Pie

P-Dub is giving away a KitchenAid stand mixer today, my friends. Oh how I yearn to win! To enter, you just have to post a recipe. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator, but since she might use some of the recipes on her cooking blog in the future, I figured I’d give her my best.

So here it is – my chicken pot pie recipe. Never typed out before today!

Laurel’s Chicken Pot Pie – makes two pies

Pot Pie Filling
4-6 split chicken breasts, depending on your taste/budget
1/2 c butter
Medium Onion
Milk (optional)
2/3 c flour
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1-2 pounds frozen vegetables (I usually use corn and peas or mixed veggies)

Start by boiling the split chicken breasts in enough water to just cover them. Once they’re cooked and have cooled enough to bone, clean those bones and cut or pull the meat into bite-sized pieces. Set aside the chicken meat.

If you want to use some milk in your pot pie (and I strongly suggest you do, unless you have allergies!) take 3 cups or so of broth from boiling the chicken. Add however much milk you need to make 5 cups. The proportions here are very fluid… use all broth if you want, add water if you want, or do it my way. Just be sure you have 5 cups of wet stuff ready to go.

Get a small bowl and measure 2/3 c of flour into it. Add 1 t salt and 1 t pepper. Set aside.
Chop the onion into a small dice. You guessed it! Set it aside also.

Now melt the 1/2 c butter in a medium stock pot. Add the onion and saute until slightly translucent.
Add the flour mixture and stir while cooking for one minute.
Slowly add in the 5 cups of liquid, whisking if needed. Then cook, stirring constantly, until the gravy starts to boil and thicken. Boil for about a minute, still stirring.

Turn off the heat and stir in your vegetables.
Then cover the filling, preheat the oven to 350′ and prepare your pastry.

Double Pie Crust – make twice
Mis together:
2 2/3 c All-purpose flour
1 t salt
Cut in with pastry cutter:
1 c butter
Sprinkle in 7-8 T cold water (1T at a time) while fluffing with fork.
(You’re looking for the pastry to start clearing the sides of the bowl)
Divide into two balls. Roll out one ball for bottom crust, fill pie, then roll out the other ball of dough for the top.

Finish edges and slit crust as you wish.

Place pies on a cookie sheet and bake for 30-45 minutes, until crust is golden. For a “crust guard,” I cut a nice big piece of tin foil, cover the pie, and cut out the middle. I take off the guard when I think there’s about 15 minutes of bake time remaining.

At Shaw Nature Reserve – Part 2

Ellie is becoming a young lady, isn’t she? I think one of the reasons she enjoys hanging out with GracieT is that she’s light enough to carry around – unlike her own baby brother!

The stepping stones were a big hit.

I carried Stephen in a wrap most of the way, but caught this sweet shot when Jonathan was carrying him –

This picture is too funny. You must click on it to get the full effect.

They have a wonderful newer area that I think the kids could explore for hours. The girls loved the tables and chairs.

Our Afternoon at Shaw Nature Reserve – Part 1

As I mentioned in my late night/early morning post, we spent yesterday afternoon at Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit. It was our first visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially fun was the fact that we went with other families from our chapel, and enjoyed fellowship as well as a gorgeous view of God’s creation.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day. “Few” is relative to the fact that we took 132 pictures of our time there!

You just might see this one again on our next Christmas card –

Here are our Blessings with the Treasures of our dear friends Alan & Sue.

No, we don’t generally encourage our girls to hold hands with boys, but this was too sweet a moment to not capture.

Aren’t they sweet? GracieT turned one last week!

Katie enjoyed the dandelions.

More quakin’

I find it amusing that the one at 4.30 am wakes me up, but I miss the one at 10.14am. It was a 4.6’er. I guess you know now that our house is busier at 10.15 than at 4.30!

There was also a 2.5’er at 10.15.

Do you like my quake lingo?

I know very little about earthquakes, and would tend to assume that these other quakes are aftershocks. However, I find it interesting that on the USGS page for the region, they are each listed individually.

Did you feel it??

We just experienced our first earthquake. About 25 minutes after we felt it, we found confirmation it was not our imagination – a 5.4 near West Salem, IL (around 130 miles away). At this distance, what we felt was pretty mild, but quite the rush since it was our first.

Praying folks are safe!

Update – They’ve changed the info and are now saying it was a 5.2 (and was centered 7 miles underground). It was felt as far as 900 miles away.

Also – there was another, smaller quake in the same area at 6.55. It was a 2.6.