as most of you know by now, my mom's birthday falls on valentine's day. we try to steer clear of hearts, roses, and the colors pink and red. this year we celebrated with a fun family lunch at our house. it was so much fun. i came up with quite a menu:
- corn chowder (for which i could not find a single soup toureen all through tulsa!)
- individual chicken pot pies
- mac'n'cheese cups (thank you pinterest)
- caprese skewers
- white chocolate-filled raspberries
- outside-in chocolate covered strawberries
- steamed asparagus & steamed green beans
- oh! and of course, yummy cake from seana hon
to start the corn chowder you beign by sauteeing chopped onion in butter. ree adds bacon, but i did not. then you add diced bell pepper. ree doesn't do this in her recipe, but i added celery and carrots. these vegetables smell amazing when they're cooking.
after everthing is nice and soft, you add just enough flour to coat the vegetables and then add the corn. ree used corn from the cob, but i already had quite a lot going on, so i used canned sweet corn, and drained the juice before adding. doesn't it look lovely all mixed together?
after that, you add chicken stock and then half-and-half. if i were making this for dinner, i would probably use a lighter milk, but for this special occasion, i wanted everything to be decadent. after you let it simmer for about twenty minutes or so and really thicken, you then add cheese to it (i used a colby jack mixture). the finishing touch? sliced green onion. it was super easy to make -- i just really need to get a food processor. chopping all the veggies is what takes the most time.
next up -- the mac & cheese cups. they were a pinterest recipe and weren't as divine as i had hoped ... so i probably won't make them again. i was really hoping they would be good for travis and me to take for lunches to work. they just weren't as rich and creamy as i had hoped, but would still probably be a good option for mom's trying to meal plan lunches -- you can whip up a batch, freeze them, and use them over time.
our main entree was the chicken pot pie. i made individual pies for everyone -- and they were amazing!!! so rich and delicious. i started with a martha stewart recipe, and made a few tweaks. martha's recipe makes about 5 pies and i needed eight because we had my family plus my aunt brenda, so i doubled martha's recipe in some areas.
my ingredients:
- 3 whole chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds each) -- great tip: i used rotisserie chickens
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 5 teaspoons salt, plus more for sprinkling
- 2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, plus more for sprinkling
- 2 quart homemade or canned chicken stock
- 4 chicken bouillon cubes
- 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
- 3 medium coarsely chopped yellow onions
- 2 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 4 packages of frozen mixed vegetables
- 1 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- Frozen pie crust
- 1 large egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water for egg wash
since my chickens were already cooked, i used a fork to pull the meat from the bone. i didn't worry about dicing unless the piece was exteremly large. i heated the chicken stock and bouillon cubes in a medium pot until the cubes were dissolved. in a large pot, i melted the butter and sauteed the onions. this took a while since there were so many onions. next i added the flour and cooked as martha directs for 3 minutes (stirring constantly). that's what you see here.
after that, i added the chicken stock and let it simmer until it was pretty thick. then i added salt, pepper, cream, vegetables, parsley, cheese, and chicken.
i love how gorgeous this looks as you're making it! once everything was well heated and combined, i divided the mixture among my eight large ramekins. i rolled out my dough and cut circles large enough to cover the tops of the pies with a little overhand. i brushed the rims of the bowls with the egg wash and placed the dough over the top of the pies. the egg wash helped glue the dough to the side of the ramekin and kept everything in place.
i cut letters out of the dough to place on top of each pie. i used the egg wash to stick the dough letters to the dough crusts. for mom, sierra wanted to add little hearts to make the birthday girl's pie special (hearts because we love her, not because of valentine's day). then i cut two slits in each crust, brushed the tops with egg wash, and placed all of the ramekins on the cookie sheet. they baked at 350 for about an hour to an hour and twenty-five minutes.
below are pictures from the rest of the festivities including the sweet cake.
isn't that baby boy's smile just so sweet? he melts me.
travis decided it would be funny to put conor in the fridge (we didn't close the doors). conor, on the other hand, did not think it was so funny. he pouted a little bit and then decided to cuddle close to his ornery daddy.
happy birthday, momma! we love you!
