Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chicken Pie

Hello My Dears!  How are you?  I'm sharing a recipe with you today; it's been awhile since I've done a recipe post.  Do you like chicken pie?  If you're a vegetarian, I realize that question is moot, but if you eat meat, you might like this dish.  First of all let me say that I ate my share of Swanson frozen pot pies (always chicken, never beef) when I was in college, and I certainly don't miss those.  But there is something about that combination of chicken pieces, vegetables, gravy, and pastry crust that has always appealed to me.  Just basic comfort food, I suppose.     After I married, we moved away (not far though) for about eight years, but we saw our families often, especially after our son was born.  Hal's paternal grandmother kept us supplied for years with her homemade chicken pies; sometimes we had four or five in the freezer at a time.  They were so convenient to pull out and pop in the oven for an easy and tasty home-cooked meal.  Fix some vegetables on the side, and sometimes bread, and you have a good meal, winter or summer.  Granny and her sister made many a chicken pie with the United Methodist Women's group at their church over the years.  Granny used to make extras for her family and she put lots of chicken in those.  These ladies made their own pie crust from scratch, and it was awesome.  So flaky and tender; I will always remember those pies.     

      

Quick and Easy Chocolate Pudding

Raise your hand if you like chocolate pudding.  😁  Maybe I should just ask who doesn't like chocolate pudding.  We love it at our house.  Oh, and just to clarify for folks across the pond, I'm referring to pudding as it is used in North America -- a custard served for dessert.  A few years ago, I came across a recipe for microwave pudding, and it caught my interest.  I ended up combining parts of two recipes I found online, and I've used this one with good results.               

            

Grilled Pork Tenderloin For Summer

Hello all!  I hope you had a happy and festive Fourth of July celebrating the birth of our country.  Ours was very quiet, and that suited us fine.  Hal was on vacation from Saturday through Wednesday, and we stayed on the go.  Last night after dinner, we watched the Fourth of July celebration at the White House and then watched Captain America.  😎  I'm not much of a Marvel Comics person, but I'd never seen this, and it was fun to watch.    Today, I'm sharing a recipe that comes from my mother-in-law; it's a summertime favorite at their house.    

Simple Banana Bread

Hi everyone!!  I can't believe I haven't posted in over three weeks!  Life just seems to get busier and busier, and you probably all know that the longer we go without blogging, the harder it is to get back in the groove.  I've missed you all, though, and I've missed my humble little blog.     Today I'm sharing a recipe for banana bread.  This recipe is oh, so simple and really quite good.  My hubby came home from work while it was still baking and remarked, "That banana bread smells really good!"  It did smell incredible, folks.  I used to make banana bread a lot when our son was growing up, but I don't remember it ever smelling this good.  Most cooks seem to have a recipe for banana bread in their files, but I still recommend you give this one a try.  It doesn't call for anything fancy like chocolate chips, cream cheese, or sour cream, no streusel, or glaze for the top -- just the basics. I found the recipe here at Simply Recipes, a website with some very good-looking recipes.    

Beef and Guinness Stew

Hi folks!  Winter just refuses to leave this year.  We've had snow today here in North Carolina -- how about you?  It looked like Spring yesterday when I walked Duncan at lunchtime.  There were daffodils blooming and Bradford Pears and Japanese Cherry trees in our neighbors' yards, but it didn't feel like Spring.  Hal and I were out yesterday evening, and one of the coldest winds I've ever encountered was blowing straight through our clothing.  Brrrr!   It's supposed to be cold here the rest of the week, with more chances of snow, so I thought I'd share this recipe with you for some good comfort food. I made Beef and Guinness stew this weekend for St. Paddy's Day, and I think it was a hit.  It was my first time to make this, although I have eaten it before.  We used to have an Irish restaurant in the next town over, and the owner had immigrated here from Ireland.  We found her food to be more authentically Irish than a lot of the Irish pubs around here.  

My Great-Aunt Mattie's Chocolate Pie

  I recently shared a recipe here for Minny's Chocolate Pie, from the movie, "The Help."  I've made that pie three times, and we really like it.  It's easy and it's very tasty.  Today I'm sharing a family recipe that we enjoy every year at my parent's house on Thanksgiving.  It's my great-aunt Mattie's chocolate pie, and our family just loves it.      

The Taste of Summer

Hi all!  How is your week going?  Mine has been good so far.  Last night we had our first dinner of fresh summer produce, purchased at the Piedmont Triad Farmer's Market on Saturday.  It is such a pleasure for me to visit our farmer's market.  It's located right off Interstate 40 (you can see it from the highway) and it serves the Piedmont area of North Carolina.  This past weekend, they had a bountiful selection of summer offerings from the garden, as well as homemade baked goods and goat's milk cheeses, soaps and lotions.

Simple Pork Chops

Guess what we had for dinner tonight?  If you guessed pork chops, you're right!  ;)  This is not a pretty, nor fancy, recipe so I'm just calling it simple pork chops.  There may not be a soul out there who hasn't already seen this recipe, but anyway, here you go.