As a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher I had received a great coupon from Pepperidge Farms and wanted to make a meal around their pastry.  Easy!  Chicken Pot Pie.  I used my coupon to buy the frozen sheets of pastry and lined two pie plates, made my filling and topped with two puff pastry lids.  Delicious, quick and very affordable!

Ingredients:

1.5 T olive oil
2 cups diced onion
1 cup celery
1 tsp. minced garlic
4T all-purpose flour
1 ea. 10 oz bag  frozen peas and carrots
2 cups chicken stock or strong vegetable broth
2 cups diced chicken

1 package Pepperidge Farms puff pastry
Melted butter as needed

Method:

Using a small stock pot, heat oil and sauté onion and celery until translucent.
Add the diced chicken and cook until done.
Add garlic and sauté two minutes more.
Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon until well incorporated.
Pour in stock and stir.
Simmer until filling has thickened.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add remaining vegetables and stir until all is cooked thru.

Roll out pie crust and cut it about 1/2 an inch larger than the pie plate  you are using.  Add some of the filling.  I usually fill it almost to the edge.  I do brush the edge of the bottom pie shell with egg wash and then add the top crust, also rolled out to be a bit larger than the plate.  Secure the top crust to the bottom with a fork or by a folding method whichever you are used to.

Bake in pre-heated 400° oven until the crust is nice and golden as you want to make sure the bottom crust is cooking also.  The filling is already cooked so you just have to ensure that it is warmed through especially if you had pre-made it and it was refrigerated.

When you have a nice dark golden colour on your pastry you can remove it and serve it up!

My family love Chinese style bbq pork buns (char siu bao).  I had made a roast pork the night before last and wanted to use up some of the leftovers.  Of course my pork wasn’t roasted in the traditional Chinese bbq style, but with the addition of a sauce mixed into my roast pork, I felt I could get away with it. For the bun dough I used the master recipe from my copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Ingredients:

Bun dough:

Master Recipe here.

Roast Pork:

2 cups of roast pork diced (I used leftovers remember)

Sauce:

(Adapted from The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)

For the Filling (make while the dough is rising):
5 tablespoons low-sodium chicken stock
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2  1/2 tsp sugar
2  1/4 tsp tapioca or corn starch
2 tsp ketchup
1  1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
Pinch ground white pepper
1 tbsp oil
1 small onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3/4 cup barbecued pork, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 tsp Shao Xing rice wine or gin
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

In a small bowl, combine chicken stock, oyster sauce, sugar, tapioca starch, ketchup, soy sauce, and white pepper; set aside.

Heat a wok or pan over high heat for 40 seconds and add oil. Coat wok with oil using a spatula then add onion. Lower heat to medium, and cook until onion turns light brown, about 2 minutes. Raise heat to high, add pork, and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add wine, and stir to combine.

Stir the reserved stock mixture and add it to the pan. Cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens and turns brown, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Add sesame oil, and stir to combine. Transfer to a shallow dish. Cool to room temperature.

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Once the dough has risen for the first time I took small pieces of it and flattened it to the size of a small saucer using floured hands so it didn’t stick.

Then take about one heaped tablespoon of the pork filling and place in the center of the dough disc.

Gather up the sides of the dough disc to form a ball shape enclosing the filling.  Be sure to seal the filling inside of the dough or it will leak out.   I placed my buns with the gathered seam side down and brushed with a beaten egg to give them a glossy finish.

Place buns on a sheet pan dusted with some flour and bake in the oven for approximately 15-20 mins depending on your oven.

I served mine with a plum sauce for dipping which was a great compliment.

***As I said before, these are a quick cheats way to make pork buns, so if you are looking for the traditional char siu bao, then this recipe probably isn’t for you.  It was really a way of using up our leftovers and enjoying the pork in a different way to how it was first served up.

Ok, so it’s not cake or sugary but there are times when we need to eat something else around this place.  One of my daughters is vegan and I have been researching and experimenting with new vegan & vegetarian recipes.  It’s a new year and “some” of us could stand to lose a few pounds and eat healthier in general.    I have been working on different types of hummus and so far we like the results.

The type I made didn’t have any tahini (ground sesame seeds etc)  in it.  Basically I took:

1 can of garbanzo beans/chick peas

1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2-3 heaped teaspoons of roasted red pepper paste

1/2 teaspoon of cumin (add more to your own taste)

pinch of kosher salt

1 heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic

Add all of the ingredients to your food processor or use a hand blender/wand, either will work.  Blend until you reach a consistency that you like and serve with pita chips or hot naan bread cut into triangles which is how I served it.

Healthy and so quick to make. I made this batch five minutes before I left for a New Years Party and everyone loved it!