Chicken Pot Pie!

Image from Things of the Day

There are many schools of chicken pot pie. Biscuit topped, crust over the bowl, double crust, single crust, shredded chicken, diced chicken, soup sauce, broth sauce...

And everyone thinks theirs is the best.

I am no exception. My chicken pot pie is the best.

I am of the double crust diced chicken homemade sauce school.

If you want to join me, here's my recipe. It's not exact - it's one of those cook by feel dishes.

(preheat oven to 375)

Start with chicken. You can use a whole fryer or just a couple of breasts - whatever suits your fancy. Cook thoroughly, cool, and cut into large chunks. (I usually do a fryer... I boil it for about half an hour with a dash of salt, pepper, a bundle of thyme - that way, I have leftover chicken and I can use the broth for the sauce.)

Chop one onion, two stalks of celery, and two whole carrots. (I like the first two diced, and the carrots coined.) Sautee in about three tablespoons of butter until tender.

Add a spoonful or two of flour - enough to absorb the liquid and make a paste that coats the vegetables. Continue to cook, stirring, for another minute.

Add 3/4 cup of chicken broth, plus a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Stir constantly until thickened.

Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of half and half. (Who am I kidding? Go with 1/2!!!) Again, stir until thickened. Then dump in the chicken and stir to coat.

Pour the mixture into your favorite pie crust (your grandma's recipe, or just a refrigerated one if you're lazy like me) and top with the second crust. Cut a few vents in the top in a pretty design, and pop it in the oven (375, remember?) for about 30-40 minutes, or whenever it looks done. Cut into six pieces, and feel free to eat two. I always do.

YUM! Chicken pot pie has become my ultimate comfort food, which is funny because I'm usually pretty opposed to food touching other food. I can't stomach shepherd's pie - nothing should be mixed with my mashed potatoes. :)

(Be careful to let your pie cool for a little before you eat it - that sauce sure is delicious, but it's like lava in there!)

Happy cooking,
Kelly

Brown Beauties

I'm a shoe girl.

Unfortunately, I had to pare down my collection for the big move.

So now I'm down to 12 pairs. (It sounds like alot, but believe me - it's a big change for me.)

I've been doing well, keeping my thoughts away from things like patent leather and round toes.

Until I saw these babies. Wish List!!!

Home Improvement

(Did any of you guys watch that show? My sister and I ate it up, mainly because of JTT. Plus, Wilson is so mysterious.)

Anyway...

Colton's gaffing today (that means he's in charge of lighting a set) so I'm here at the apartment trying to make it a little more like a home. It's definitely a nice apartment, but it's very bare. Cream walls, cream ceiling, slightly darker cream carpet. I usually work with a pretty bright palette, so it's a challenge to liven this place up a little without having to paint everything (although I'm planning to paint the bedroom a light grey.)

So this morning I put up the curtains. (I borrowed a drill from the manager. The directions on the rod said to use a 1/4 bit. Yikes!) I also decided to go ahead a put some photos up, and I made a little harness on our ukulele to attach it to the wall :)

Our Fireplace!

The Living Room (The couch faces the tv, and is actually a really nice warm grey, even though it looks brown in the picture)

The fabric I picked out to sew some cushions

Our Jack-O-Lantern! Here in LA, pumpkins wilt fast. This guy's been carved for about four days, which is why he's looking rough. In case you can't tell, it's a mario mushroom :)

Now I just have to walk to the store and pick up some stuff for dinner. I'm thinking risotto!

Concerning the Cactus

Those guys really don't mess around.

The other night, as we were wrapping on a short that I Art Directed, I parked the car a wee bit too close to some cacti on the side of the road. As I got into the passenger side later, my leg brushed up against one, and I said, "Ouch! Cactus!", but then it was pretty much over.

But! The next day in the car (we were on the way to see Take Shelter, which I highly recommend. Just great!) I wiggled in my seat a bit, and Youch!!! I said, "Aaaaaaiigh!!!, I think there's a cactus spine in my leg!". But I couldn't do anything about it. (Darn you, skinny jeans.) I had to run into the bathroom and take off my pants. I found the perpetrators - two of those hair-looking spines had caught in my jeans the night before, and had laid low until I wiggled. It took a few minutes to pry them out.

Nasty little buggers.

News: the beautiful and ugly.

Everyone likes to give good and bad news at the same time. Doctors, reporters, parents...

I have good and bad news, I'll start with the bad.

I got my car towed yesterday :(
Mainly because I'm a stupid idiot. It takes awhile to get a hang on this living in LA thing... I'm beginning to learn the driving rules (drive fast, use your blinker, if it looks like you can't get over just go because they won't hit you, if you can't turn left turn turn left on the red light as long as you're the first or second person in line, keep an eye on walkers and bikers because they sure won't keep an eye on you, if you can't parallel park just do it because that's the only space you'll get, etc.) But I still forget that this city doesn't kid around about parking violations. At about 1:30, I parked in a spot in front of my friend's house that's no parking 3-5. I thought, "Oh, it's not three, so I can park here." But alas! I left it there until after three, and bam. It was gone.

It was a little complicated to get it back, because:
1) I didn't have any money, because the day before Colton and I went to the bank, opened a joint account, and are waiting for our debit cards to arrive. They gave us a temporary card, which you can use at the ATM, but Colton had it and you can only take out $60 at a time. The tow place would only accept cash or a credit card that belonged to you, so my friend decided that she could write me a check and we'd take it to the bank and cash it.
2) Her husband had the car and was downtown. He got stuck in traffic on the way home, so once he got back to the apartment, we literally had twelve minutes before the bank closed, and an hour before the towers closed. Also, I was supposed to pick Colton up from work in an hour, and bring him back at 7am.
3) The car is in Colton's dad's name, so I had to get him to fax a release form and his picture id to the towers.
4) Colton and I went to the DMV last week, and I must've accidentally switched the registrations afterward, because the one in the car was expired.

But!
1) We made it to the bank - I was the last customer they let in.
2) Colton's dad was able to send the fax.
3) The guy at the towers was really, really nice. I showed him that the license sticker was up to date, and he let my registration slide.
4) They didn't have change, and asked if I had three extra dollars. The only money I had in my wallet was three dollars.
5) So I got the car back!!!
5) Colton wasn't mad, or even annoyed. When we got home, he was so sweet and made my bad night into a good one :)

And that's not even the good news!

The good news is that I have some wedding pictures to show :)

Here's a facebook album with more, if you want to see :)
Photography Credit: Heather and Jon from One Love Photo. Check out their website. Do it.

Food Stuffs

One of the things that has surprised me most about being married is -

The Difficulty of Keeping the House Running!

Well, I knew that I would have trouble with keeping things tidy,
mainly because I hate keeping things tidy.

I'm still working on that.

But I love to cook, so I thought I would knock it out of the park.

I'm still working on that, too. I've been working off of a $100 per week grocery budget, and so I think it's best to plan the full week of meals and buy all the groceries at the same time so I don't go over. The hardest part is trying to be creative with what I cook but also be Colton-friendly. (That means hearty meals - no girl food!)

My new best friends - the lovely ladies at the Big Girls Small Kitchen blog. Yay! They make planning alot easier, because there are so many yummy recipes that are fun and sort-of fancy, but low key as far as ingredients and time. Last night I made pesto to mix up with fettuccine, potatoes, and green beans. I also made their homemade ginger ale as a treat for our nightly viewing of The Office. Here's the recipe if you want to try it! But I might recommend using club soda instead of sparkling water if you like your ginger ale more on the fizzy side, and less on the sparkling water side. (sparkling water. Blech!)

The other day I had a cooking crisis. Colton got home from work at four. "I'm hungry! I'm hungry!" "Okay, Mister, let's see here..."

I opened the fridge. Nothing. And dinner was in the crock pot and wouldn't be ready for another three hours.

"Hmm. Ummm."

What is a girl to do? Make something up!

I scrounged around for anything we had. I found: Three pieces of bread. Four slices of bacon. Two eggs. Shredded Cheese. Perfect!

So I invented a new Davie family classic. The Kelly Double Decker Breakfast Sandwich Surprise!

It's delicious. Generously butter one side of two of the slices of bread. Fry up however much bacon you have, and two eggs. (I like mine fully cooked, no runny yolk!) Layer everything up, and use the cheese like glue so your sandwich doesn't fall apart - bread with the butter side down, a little cheese, fried egg, bacon, a little cheese, unbuttered bread, a little cheese, fried egg, bacon, a little cheese, bread with the buttered side up. Smoosh it a little. Stick it in the pan and brown on both sides.

Happy Husband! I wish I had taken a picture. It was a masterpiece.

A Job Done!!!

Hey Guess What?

I'm in a gelato cafe in Studio City, about a mile from our apartment. (I've been doing a lot of walking lately).

Guess What Else?

I think I just had my first star sighting!

On the way here, I said hi to this guy who passed with a hat and sunglasses. As soon as he said Hi back and passed, I realized that he looked and sounded JUST like Bill Murray. I swear.

Guess What Else?

I haven't scanned the trip film yet, but only because I've been working feverishly on something else while Colton has been hard at work on set...

Andrew and Millie's Wedding Pictures! I'm done with them! Here's a sneak peek of what I did.

 

Millie and Andrew, I hope you love them. You were a joy to shoot.