Newlywed Chickie Pie

Y'all have probably figured out by now that cooking is not part of my divadom. I mean, I consider myself somewhat of a domestic diva. I love to clean. I love to work in the yard and I love, love to take care of our pool. But when it comes to cooking, it just ain't happening. I want to like it. I collect aprons. I collect cookbooks. I love to read cooking magazines and rarely go to the store without buying the latest issue of one of my favorites. And I'm usually a pretty good cook WHEN I cook. It just makes me really tired to do it.

Last night I felt like making something that is one of Jeff's all-time favorites. It's a chicken pot pie recipe that I've been making for him ever since we've been married. In fact, it's the oldest recipe I've got. It's handwritten by me and got several spills on it. I don't even remember where I got it from 22 years ago. I've done some fine tuning on it over the years, but it's mostly the same.

I call it Newlywed Chickie Pie

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken or 4-7 chicken breast. Cook the chicken and let cool. Line your dish with shredded chicken.
Heat one can cream of celery, cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup and 1 1/4 cup of the chicken broth where you boiled the chicken (you can use bought broth if you like). Whisk together and pour over the layer of chicken.

One large can Veg-All, drained. Pour the can of Veg-All over the soup and chicken mixture. I like to use my hands for this because it seems like all the vegetables like to hang out together with their like vegetables in the can. I separate them with my hands and put them in the dish.

Next comes the batter. Sift together 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt.

This sifter belonged to my great-grandmother Kimball. It's lovely, don't you think?

After sifting your dry ingredients, pour in one stick melted butter, slowly adding 1 cup of milk.

Whisk your batter up very well and pour over everything in the dish. DO NOT STIR. This is how your chickie pie will look just before going into the 425 degree preheated oven.

Cook for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on your oven.

This is how your chickie pie will look when it comes out of the oven. . .

IF YOU FORGET TO PUT THE BAKING SODA IN!!!!!!

See how part of it is cooked an dry and part is runny? Yeah, well, it's not supposed to look like that. It's supposed to have a nice crust that rises up through the whole thing. I think I ended up cooking that darned chicken pie for at least an hour. I kept wondering why in the world it was staying so runny. Then I remembered. Ah ha. I forgot the 2 teaspoons of baking soda.

Oh, well, you can't be good at everything. Jeff ate it anyway. Ross did too. Cam doesn't like chickie pie. I had cereal.

I wanted to show y'all what I bought myself yesterday for -- well, just because they were sooooo gorgeous.

Do you ever stop by the floral department at your grocery store? I always do to see if they have any flowers that they have marked down. They had these beauties marked down to $4.99. $4.99 for a dozen roses. Wow! They even smell good too. Better than the last ones Jeff sent to me, which had absolutely no smell.

I sat through a 6-hour Korean translator depo today. Can you say torture? I'm not cooking tonight. I know you're shocked, aren't you? We're going out to Mellow Mushroom when Jeff's done with football practice.

Till tomorrow, y'all have a good evening!