Happy fall!
Do you say "fall" or "autumn"? I would love to be an "autumn" person, because it's sounds much more luxurious and sophisticated. But I tend to be short and to the point. So I say "fall."
Fall means a lot of things to me. Sweaters. Jackets. Jeans. Boots. No more shaving my legs (or at least less shaving). Orange. Crunchy leaves. Pumpkins. Comfort food. Baking things in the oven and loving the added warmth in the house.
Is it fall for you yet? We're still having some warm afternoons here in the Pacific northwest, but this morning was quite chilly. Sweetpea had such cold fingers on our walk to school this morning that I told her we could break out the gloves tomorrow.
Ahh, gloves. I love this time of year.
I'm celebrating with individual chicken pot pies, one of my top 10 comfort foods. These chicken pot pies, from Ina Garten. You may know Ina Garten better as The Barefoot Contessa. I know her as a wonderful cook who makes everything better with butter.
This recipe is no exception. It calls for one and a half sticks of butter. Yikes. You know I like to make my recipes healthified, so I cut that back to just half a stick of butter, and it turned out just fine.
I also didn't thaw enough chicken, so I scrounged around in my fridge and found a package of extra firm tofu that was a day or two past its "sell by" date. Oops. So I cubed it up and threw it in, too.
The kids could tell I put tofu in it—they're taste bud super-sleuths. But Hubs didn't notice.
And I didn't care. I just loved how tasty it was.
Don't skimp on the pearl onions! (And definitely use frozen.) They are my favorite part.
For the record, I did not make the pie crust, as suggested in the recipe. My dear friend Pillsbury made up and even pre-rolled several batches of pie crust and stuck them in my freezer for me. He's so great.
Oh, and a side note: Ina Garten uses this exact same chicken recipe for Chicken Stew with Biscuits. No pie crust, just topped with buttery homemade biscuits. It is out of this world.
What are you looking forward to cooking as the weather cools?
