Sneak your veggies.

I was having a discussion yesterday with my sister (who also posts here) about vegetables. She prefers them raw or with a light steam. Strangely, so do I. I say "strangely" because we were raised with a different methodology for "enjoying" vegetables. Our mother would open a can of veggies for dinner, plunk it into a dish, & stuff it into the microwave for 1-2 minutes (where sometimes it was forgotten).

Now, to Mom's defense - She likes veggies. A LOT. & If she could, she'd have many small mainly vegetarian dishes for dinner. However, she was feeding a family of 7 back then, & she was working 8-12 hour days as a nurse.

Anyways - back to the veggies. So, last night, I made a chicken pot pie for me & the man. We used 1/2 of a (leftover) roasted chicken, some homemade gravy (which was mainly low sodium chicken broth), (leftover) roasted carrots & onions, roasted butternut squash, green beans, & some fresh sage. I made a quick crust to cover it all, & that was that.

The kicker? It was MAINLY vegetables. The man didn't even notice. & he's from Texas - So, he'd notice. I thought it was a pretty successful dish. Overall, we just needed more salt in it. I added the recipe for it below.

Also, I watched Top Chef last night. One of the favorites put bananas into his polenta. (If you're Italian & reading this, I do apologize for the shock.) It got a lot of "wows!" from the taste-testers. & I thought - what another clever way to add more nutrients into your meal.

What do you do to add vegetables into your meals? Do you have to sneak them?

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Chicken Pot Pie

This is a rough estimate of a recipe - I mainly did a lot of "throw this in, throw that in." I used this recipe as a guideline, but I made it faster & cheaper by using leftovers. When I roasted the chicken, I stuck the carrots & onions into the roasting pan. So, the onions were full of flavor & ready for putting into the pot pie. The carrots - I wish they had been fresh. In the recipe below, I listed it as though you were using fresh veggies. Do either - I'm sure it'll be great either way.

1/2 leftover roasted chicken
4-5 cups of gravy (we had a gravy shortage - so I upped the ante.)
8 leaves of fresh sage, chopped
10-15 baby carrots (or 2-3 larger carrots)
1/2 cup of onions (pearl, boiling, or regular)
2 cups of fresh or defrosted frozen green beans
1-2 lb. butternut squash
1 fresh or pre-made crust
4 individual pie pans, or two medium pie pans. (We used medium casserole dishes, which worked fine.)
salt/pepper
1 egg (if using egg wash for pie crust)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Chop the leftover chicken, carrots, onions, and green beans into bite-size pieces. Peel the butternut squash & chop into cubes.

Drizzle the butternut squash with some olive oil and a little salt, to taste. Toss to coat the squash with the oil and transfer to a baking sheet. Roast until the squash is cooked but still has some texture, about 15 to 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Put the onions and carrots into a pan with a little oil & sweat the veggies on medium heat. The carrots should be more tender & the onions should get a little translucent.

About this time, the squash & the onion/carrot mixture should be ready. When the squash comes out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature down to 375.

Now, it's time to assemble the pot pie. Divvy your veggies (carrot/onion, squash, green beans) & sage with the chicken into your pie-cooking containers. Ladle the gravy in & fill about 3/4 of the container. Add salt/pepper to taste. Top each container with a pie crust. Crack your egg, whip it, & brush the top of your pie crust (if you want to put a sheen on your crust). Cut slits into the top of your crust to allow it to vent.

Put your pot pies into the oven, & bake for about 30-35 minutes. I had extended it to almost 40 minutes b/c I wanted the crust very crispy, which turned out pretty well. However, in tasting it, we would've liked it less crispy. Hindsight!

This made about 4-5 servings of pot pie.


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