Spinach & Shroom Chicken Pot Pie on the fly

This dinner makes me happy for so many reasons. First, it is cheap and easy in a classy way. Second, it is healthy and I can sneak in all sorts of vegetables without my picky toddler or her even pickier father realizing because it is so damn delicious. I usually have fillo dough in the freezer and you can use any veggies you have on hand. And third, it pairs great with a bottle…I mean glass of Pinot Noir! I am loving Hahn Estates Pinot Noir (2013 from California) with this dish because the big berry and earthy undertones dance with the Portobello mushrooms. And who am I kidding, after I put the kid to bed I will finish the whole bottle in the dark in my kitchen just relishing the silence.

Ok back to the yummy goodness that is this meal…

Start by doing all of your prep work. Dice up your vegetables. I used onion, garlic, carrots, Portobello mushrooms, baby spinach, and celery for this one. You could just use onion, celery, and carrot if that is all you have. Add frozen peas, whatever you like.

Now it is time to chop your chicken into 1-inch chunks. I used chicken breasts because that it what I had but thighs would work fine too. You could also make this a vegetarian dish and just use a ton of yummy fresh veggies. Ok, back to the chicken. Season it well with salt, pepper, and thyme (fresh or dried will work). Cook the chicken in some olive oil in large hot skillet until about three-quarters of the way done, about 4 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Next add onion to the pot and de-glaze the pan with a splash of white wine or chicken broth, scraping up all of the brown bits on the bottom of the pan (that is the flavor people!). Add a couple of tablespoons of unbleached wheat flour to pan. Cook onions for a few minutes and then add garlic and cook one minute. Add the other vegetables, except for the spinach and mushrooms, along with 11/2 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, get a large baking dish ready and pull your thawed fillo dough out of the refrigerator. When the chicken mixture has cooked about 8 minutes stir in spinach and Portobello mushrooms and cook an additional 2 minutes. Pour mixture into the baking dish. Working quickly, very lightly brush each sheet of fillo dough with olive oil and place on top of chicken in casserole dish.

 Bake for about 15 minutes in a 425° oven until fillo dough is crispy and golden brown.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs. chicken (breast or thigh)
• 2 Tbs. + more for brushing fillo dough
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• Portobello mushrooms, diced
• 6 oz. baby spinach
• 10 sheets fillo dough
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 2 Tbs. Flour
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (or extra chicken broth)
• 11/2 C. Chicken Broth

Preheat oven to 425°.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Season chicken with half of the salt, pepper, and thyme. Add chicken to pot and cook for 4 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside.

Add onions to pot and then de-glaze pot with white wine. Cook for a couple of minutes and add flour and remaining salt, pepper, and thyme. Cook 2 more minutes and add garlic and cook for about one minute. Add carrots, celery, and chicken broth to pan. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook covered about 8 minutes until sauce thickens.

While sauce cooks, take thawed fillo dough out of refrigerator. Put some olive oil in a bowl for brushing fillo dough. When chicken mixture is done, pour into large baking dish. Brush each sheet of fillo dough lightly with olive oil and place on top of chicken mixture to make a fillo stack topping. Bake for about 15 minutes until fillo dough is brown and flaky and pie is bubbling.

Make sure to pour yourself a glass of wine because you have made a real, mostly healthy dish for your family that tastes and looks amazing in about a half hour; and that my dear is amazing.

Baby, Get Real

Fun with Salt Dough

My daughter and I made salt dough yesterday and boy was it fun and easy! All you need is flour, water, and salt. It is a great activity for a toddler because if they eat it (which they most likely will) it is all real ingredients.

First I put everything we needed out on the counter. We needed a big mixing bowl, a measuring cup, flour, salt, and water. I also got several different sizes of glasses to use to make different shapes. Most of you probably have cookie cutters that would work great too (I am not a baker so I do not have any cookie cutters). Stamps are fun to use to make impressions in the dough as well.

 

Mix up all of the ingredients and knead the dough. We made owls, snowmen, and ornaments for our Christmas tree. Don’t forget to poke a hole for a hanger if you make ornaments. A straw worked well to make the holes. We also used a marker cap to make circles in our dough and for the owls. This dough is perfect to make hand prints and footprints (or even puppy footprints!) to use as keepsakes.

Bake the dough in a 200° F oven for 2 hours. Paint them when they have cooled down. Here is our finished product:

Baby, get real!

Banana Pancakes…Where have you been all my life?

Banana Pancakes…Where have you been my whole life?.

Banana Pancakes…Where have you been all my life?

Pancakes are a wonderfully delicious breakfast. You can top or stuff them with any fruit or nut; hell even bacon. But lets face it…pancakes from scratch are not something that happens often in most busy households. I have just learned the most simple pancake recipe on earth…the banana pancake. No this is not pancakes with bananas cooked inside, it is banana pancakes. Banana. Egg. Cinnamon. Honey. Its a real healthy breakfast from scratch that your picky toddler will eat, done before the coffee is finished brewing!

My three year old loved this because she could help. I gave her the banana in a mixing bowl and a fork. I told her to go to town squishing it up with the fork. You could puree the banana but we like chunks of bananas in our pancakes. Next we whisked in two eggs, a tablespoon of raw local honey, and cinnamon to taste. Cook like you would regular pancakes; on a hot griddle. We topped ours with more banana slices and a drizzle of maple syrup. Next time we will add blueberries or walnuts. There are lots of possibilities with this one.

Enjoy!

Garlic Oil: A REAL and easy way to cure an ear ache

Our three year old woke up last night screaming bloody murder. She was in pain and said her ear hurt. It was around midnight and I did not think a trip to the Emergency Room in the middle of the night on Thanksgiving was necessary. After looking up several natural remedies, I decided to make some garlic oil because that is all I had in the house at the time and a midnight trip to the grocery store was the last thing I wanted to do.

I smashed and chopped five cloves of garlic and added it to about a 1/4 cup of coconut oil (olive oil works great too). I simmered it on low until garlic edges turned brown; about 10 minutes. Let the oil cool to about room temperature. Drop a couple of drops into the ear and put a little bit of cotton to keep it from running back out.

After just a few minutes the crying stopped and little girl was asleep again. I put a couple more drops in her ear today and she is bouncing off the walls as usual, no ear ache in sight.

Homemade Baby Food: The Only REAL Way

It all started with the baby food…

My mother-in-law gave me a Baby Bullet to make homemade baby food for my baby shower. She knew I liked to cook and I thought the gift was creative. I had not given any thought at all to baby food at that point…I was 7 months pregnant and had never even changed a diaper, let alone fed a baby. I was convinced I would not be able to keep this child alive until she was old enough to eat baby food.

 

This gift got me thinking…I had just assumed I would buy the jars of baby food that most everyone buys. Why would a company make anything that was less than healthy for our babies? How long ago were those pureed fruits and vegetables grown? Why do they not expire for 4 years? I don’t want to eat a 4 year old banana. Not only that, one jar of baby food costs about $0.50 and I can buy a pound of bananas for $0.47!

Then came the research…

Gerber and Heinz replace real food with water and thickening agents in most of their food for children over the age of six months. So not only are you paying much more for jarred baby food, it is diluted! These products are nutritionally inferior to the real thing!

Low and behold Lola survived being a newborn and we were told to start solids when she turned six months old. I made every drop of baby food that she ever ate! It was extremely easy, super affordable, and it ensured that everything Lola ate was fresh and healthy.

When babies first begin to eat solid food it is more about learning to eat and swallow solids, and less about them getting it all in their mouths! More will end up on them and you than in their bellies. At this point it is not necessary to make foods in big batches and freeze. However, frozen homemade baby food will last for six months in the freezer.

A month or so in to eating solid food, I started to make it in big batches and freezing it. You will want to give your baby one food only per week to make sure they do not have any food allergies. Bananas, avocados, and sweet potatoes are great foods to begin with. After we tried pretty much all fruits and vegetables I started to mix them together to give her more selection.

The best cooking method for the vegetables is to steam them. The vegetables retain more nutrients when they are steamed versus boiled or microwaved. Most fruits do not need to be cooked unless they are not a soft fruit. I cooked apples, pears, and peaches. Bananas, mangos, berries, melons, and kiwis do not need to be cooked.

I would visit my local farmers market once every two weeks and stock up on vegetables and fruits. In the winter I bought local frozen fruits and vegetables that I found at the grocery store.

First I laid out all of the fruits and vegetables on the kitchen counter. I peeled anything that needed to be peeled and diced everything up. It is much more efficient to do one task at a time. Wash it all first, peel everything next, then dice it all up.

 

Next step is to steam the fruits and veggies. At the beginning I cooked each vegetable separately. Once I started to serve Lola mixed fruits and veggies, I would steam those together. For example, I cooked broccoli, sweet potatoes, and carrots all together and then blended them up together. Presto…mixed vegetables.

Blending the ingredients is next. Like I said, I had a Baby Bullet but it was a gift. It is absolutely not necessary to purchase one. A blender or food processor works great too. Blend each batch of steamed vegetables until smooth. Add a little of the cooking water if you need more liquid. This water has nutrients from the vegetables in it.

The easiest way to store it all was to pour the purees into ice cube trays. Once they were frozen, I would pop the cubes of food out and bag them in labeled sandwich baggies. Then put them back in the freezer. Each night before bed I would pull out what the baby would eat the next day and thaw it in the refrigerator. She ate fruits cold and I would put the bag of vegetables in a pot of simmering water on the stove to warm them. Microwaving can zap the nutrients in the food and also create hot pockets of food that can burn your little ones mouth.

Homemade baby food is really the best way to go. It is easy, cheap, and the healthiest option for your baby. This whole process began a new way of life for my family too. Now I read the label of every food product I buy. If I can’t pronounce an ingredient or don’t know what one is I do not buy it. You would be surprised to know what is in some of the food we eat, especially food marketed to kids.

Baby, Get Real!