Move over Marie!

Marie as in Marie Callender... Past weekend, I made a chicken pot pie for my honey because he loves them. I'm not much of a chicken pot pie person but I thought I'd give it a try for our anniversary. He's been resorting to the frozen kind, poor thing, or the next best thing at a restaurant. The recipe I used was not a simple one but my friend at work swears that this is THE recipe for it. If you know me about cooking, I'm inspired by recipes but I create my own versions, it's rare (almost never) that I follow recipes to the T. But I was determined to follow this one because it's a special one. :)

I studied the recipe and planned it all out. I got all the grocery shopping done including the white pearl onions. I've never seen them except the jarred ones. You see how much of a gourmet cook I am. I prepared the chicken the night before so it'll be ready to go the next day. I was mostly afraid of making the pie crust. Never made it before. Frankly, I'm quite afraid of making any kind of dough (except for cookies).

Next day, I started with the pie crust. And yes I made it by hand not resorting to an electric mixer or a food processor. I thought I'd really get down to the rustics of it. Right away, my honey saw that this was turning into labor of love. And boy was he right, I've never worked so hard for making one dish. Not to mention how much time it took. The recipe said I should cook all the vegetables separately. So I did. The bechamel sauce was simple but took patience to stir every minute and wait for it to reduce while multi-tasking chopping herbs that would go in afterwards.

Just as I was afraid, the dough didn't quite cooperate with me. It started to break apart when I rolled it out. But I managed to work it by kneading more and put it in the pie pan. Wheaww! Finally I got all the goodies in the pan, poured the sauce, and put the top crust over. It went in the oven for one hour.

Now I started preparing for the appetizer--iceberg lettuce salad. For this I didn't follow the recipe to the exact but I kept it pretty close I think. The salad was no labor compared to the pie. Quite tasty.

*Iceberg lettus salad with tomatoes, bacon, croutons, and blue cheese dressing*

By the time we were finished with the appetizer, ding! the pie was done. Smelled and looked good with slightly golden brown crust. When I cut into it though I could tell right away that the inside was too dry. Maybe I've reduced the sauce too much. I don't know. We ate it though. Tasted good minus the dryness. But the next day, I made extra bechamel sauce and it was million times better. Mmmm, now that was an excellent pie.



I would say that my first challenge of following a gourmet recipe was a success with room for improvement. Now I'm inspired to follow more recipes...maybe roasted chicken?