One of the things I am learning about cooking and meal planning is that you don't always have to make a whole meal ahead of time. Sometimes you can prep just part of it, and finish it off when you get home from work. This is a perfect example of that kind of meal. I'm going to take you through the steps and tell you at what point you can stop and refrigerate or freeze to finish up another night. It begins with leftover cooked chicken. When I make chicken soup, I put some of the chicken into the soup, but the rest I freeze for a meal like this. If you don't have left over chicken, you can buy one of those rotisserie chickens and pick the meat off the bone.
This is basically a kind of chicken pot pie, but with biscuits instead of a crust. You can add any vegetables you have on hand. Mine started out looking like this.
I must tell you that I love to chop. I would have been a great sous chef, because I love all the prep work that goes along with cooking. What you see here is one medium onion, one medium potato, three ribs of celery, and three carrots. Here is the recipe.
Chicken Pot Pie With Biscuit Topping
2-3 cups of cooked chicken, diced
1 medium onion finely chopped
one potato diced into half inch pieces
3 ribs of celery, finely chopped
3 medium carrots, quartered lengthwise and chopped
three cloves garlic minced
1/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley
Bisquick or canned refrigerated biscuits
Heat oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Add potatoes, onion, celery, carrots and garlic, salt, and pepper Lower heat to medium and cook for eight minutes. Add flour and cook another three to five minutes. Add wine and one cup of chicken broth. Raise heat to medium high until mixture begins to thicken. Add thyme, rosemary, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce and chicken. Lower heat to medium. Add remaining broth 1/2 cup at a time. Mixture should be like a thick gravy.
At this point, you can stop cooking, cool and refrigerate or freeze. I actually made this earlier in the morning and set it in the fridge until dinner.
About 30 minutes before you are ready to serve, preheat oven to 425 degrees and prepare a baking pan with non stick spray. Reheat chicken vegetable mixture. If it becomes too thick add more chicken broth 1/2 cup at a time. Add chopped parsley, remove from heat and add parmesan. Pour mixture into baking pan and top with biscuits. I used Bisquick to make biscuits, but the refrigerated ones will work just as well. Place the biscuits so they are almost touching. You can sprinkle with a little more parmesan cheese if you like. Bake for 15 minutes, or until biscuits are done. If you are using refrigerated biscuits, follow the package directions for time and temperature. I made mine in individual casseroles, and you can certainly do that, but I am assuming most of you don't have a set of individual casseroles. Mine are the ones I use for onion soup and are kind of fun to use.
This is a recipe you can make your own changes to. You can add frozen peas, green beans or corn. You can also add chopped peppers to the mixture you sauté at the start. You can leave out the potatoes, but I find they help as a thickener.
Give this a try and let me know how it turns out! Remember the plan ahead part! If you do, and use refrigerated biscuits, this meal will take less than 30 minutes to prepare! Perfect for a weeknight meal. Don't forget, if you are chopping vegetables for a recipe, chop extra and store in the fridge. That will make prep even easier. Have fun and enjoy!
Happy Cooking!
Carol
a.k.a. Nonnie
No comments:
Post a Comment