Raw Carrot and Avocado Salad with Lemon, Garlic and Sunflower Seed Dressing

The beginning of November means it's time for another Recipe Swap. A group of intrepid food bloggers gather monthly (electronically) to recreate a recipe, chosen from a quaint recipe book, in our own versions.

Carrot pie, our chosen recipe, is a dish of carrot quiche. The carrot is so simple and inexpensive, I was more than excited to work with this bunny-inspired ingredient so I ordered a few pounds of carrots from my local farmer.

With the cold weather seeping into the midwest, my mind is turning to warm and hearty dishes. I set to work on a pasta carrot sauce, which turned out great. Then I used that sauce in a vegetarian lasagna. The photos are done, the recipe is written. All that was left to do was write up the post.

Extra carrots remained in my fridge though, and after all the heavy dishes I had just created I longed for lighter, summer fare. Plus I had a pile of shaved carrots leftover from the lasagna. So I tossed them into nutty, garlicky dressing and didn't look back.

I'm not entirely ready for heavy fall food and that's okay because we have a number of winter months ahead of us. This incredibly simple salad fills me up without weighing me down. It's another fat and happy recipe swap success!

Recipe Swap: Pork-Stuffed Bread with Cherry Relish

The monthly Recipe Swap challenges a group of bloggers to recreate an old recipe by varying the ingredients or method. These recipes are chosen from old hymnals, pioneer journals and treasured recipe books; often they are quite intriguing. Take this month's recipe for example -  pork fruit cake. The recipe literally says to mix all the ingredients (a pound of pork and a pound of currants) and then bake very slowly. Priceless.


My recipe goal is to stick with most of the original ingredients while messing with the method. But wanting to be somewhat true to the original recipe, I wanted the pork to be encased in bread. Steamed buns were calling out. But I had an overload of Asian food leading up to my weekend cooking. So I decided to stuff the pork into fresh bread loaf and use the fruit aspect as a compote on the side.

I have to admit, time got away from me and and in a rare moment of weakness I decided to purchase the bread rather than make it from scratch. The baking gods wouldn't allow it - there was no frozen bread dough to be found. I was meant to make it from scratch. So I set my alarm for early and kneaded my way through it.

What did I end up with? Exactly what it sounds like. Luscious pulled pork wrapped in warm, buttery, crunchy, doughy bread with a titillating spicy, fruity relish. Freaking yummy! Seriously.

There is life in those old recipes yet, you just gotta make them yours. Make this delicious Fat and Happy pork bread in the mean time.

Recipe Swap: Orange Ginger Scallops with Wasabi Coleslaw

The beginning of July brings a new Recipe Swap; this month's recipe redo is for a classic coleslaw - Oregon Style- from an old recipe book called The Second Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes From Famous Eating Places. Our goal is to recreate the recipe in our own spin by changing at least 3 ingredients.

There are hundreds of coleslaw variations out there already so my creation needed to stand out from the usual crowd. On it's own, coleslaw is a great side salad. But when you pair it with a main course such as with pulled pork or with tacos, that's when it really shines.

Summer vegetables scream to be left fresh so my thought was to create a light summer coleslaw and top it up off with seared scallops. The wasabi just adds a little kick to the whole dish while topping with wasabi peas finishes it off with a whimsical crunch.  (if only I had remembered to get them while at the grocery store!) This is a revved up Fat and Happy coleslaw that rises above the classic salad.

Recipe Swap: Chocolate Avocado Chipotle Tequila Popsicles

After taking a month off from the Recipe Swap, we are back in full force to kick off the first weekend of summer with our individual remakes of a Chocolate Mint Pie.

My first inclination was to make an inside out pie in the form of a crunchy mint truffle using the homemade creme de menthe left over from my shamrock shake adventure. Days before this post was due I received an invitation to a Top Chef Drink party ... being held at my house!

Visions of glasses smudged from smoldering rosemary, concoctions bubbling with pop rock inventions and deconstructed cocktails swirled in my head. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn't have a lot of time to create the winning drink AND prepare for the party.

I toyed with chocolate and mint in a drink but I couldn't get past the girly martini stigma surrounding those flavors. A frozen cocktail felt a bit better, but it needed a savory edge, something almost spicy. And it needed a filler. The obvious choice was a Greek yogurt until I remembered a chocolate avocado shake I once made. Avocados are green and so is mint, seemed like a fair swap.

Pizza Breadsticks

The Monthly Recipe Swaps are meant to challenge a group of food bloggers to recreate a recipe from its original intention. Our chosen recipe for this month is a pizza in the simplest form. Now I love pizza as much as the next person  -though I'm impartial to my grilled flat bread pizzas I've been concocting for decades.

But the goal of the swap is to create something new, a variation of a pizza. I wanted it to be simple but have the essence of pizza. Life has become so busy that my latest  kitchen mantra is fast, easy and simple. That means a yeast crust was out; not that working with yeast is difficult but I wanted a quicker recipe with no assembling and proofing time.

What if the toppings were inside the dough itself like a pizza bread? Or a pizza stick. A bread stick filled with pizza toppings. It could work!

Recipe Swap: Wild Rice Pancakes with Smoked Mahi Mahi

I've lost all sense of the days. So when I saw an email reminder for the February Recipe Swap happening today I nearly fell out of bed. I was sure I had another week to play in the kitchen. Nope, turns out I had about 5 hours. ACK!

This swap was to remake a wild rice salad. I sat stunned for a moment holding my coffee cup exactly 1 inch a way from my lips. The intoxicating smell snapped me out of my trance. There is always wild rice in my pantry thanks to my Minnesota connections. Hundred of wild rice salad variations have made their way through my kitchen...but I was feeling this recipe needed to be more just a salad. Savory pancakes came to mind as a wave of long forgotten creativity waved over me; then a moment of remembrance brought the whole dish home.

Just a few weeks ago we were battling to reel in beautiful Dorado (Mahi Mahi) while deep sea fishing in Cabo San Lucas. We grilled our catch for our group as a celebratory dinner on our last night; luckily we had one of the largest catches smoked to bring home with us. This smoked Mahi Mahi is a perfect accompaniment to the wild rice.

Recipe Swap: Pumpkin Maple Zabaglione over French Toast

Zabaglione - sounds fancy, doesn't it? Simply put, it's a delightfully light egg and alcohol custard. Deceivingly easy to make, the required constant whipping creates tiny bubbles that give this custard its light and airy 'foam' texture.

There are many versions of Zabaglione but traditionally it's a dessert made with Marsala and often served with fruit or spooned over a cake.

Because this is a Recipe Swap, how could I stick with a dessert version? Savory ideas from cheese to spicy pepper meandered through my mind, yet the idea of a sweet custard would not stop interfering.

A Pumpkin Liquor sent by great friends as a Strange Ingredient gave me the inspiration and base for this recipe. Imagine a Pumpkin Zabaglione with a hint of maple dripping down the side of buttery golden brown french toast. Plus Dave loves french toast and I've been forcing him to eat a lot of healthy dishes this past week, so it will be the perfect surprise breakfast.

Recipe Swap: Meat Pies with Maple Ginger Glaze

What: Monthly Recipe Swap
Goal: Change 3 ingredients and/or the method of an old recipe to create something new
Recipe: Maple Syrup Cake
Why: Why not?

My mittens made their first appearance of the season recently. Though the sun is still shining, my fingers are the tell tale sign to what is just around the corner. Starring out the window I watched the wind reek havoc on the lifeless herbs. My mind searched for ideas around recreating a maple syrup cake for the monthly recipe swap

Visions of a soft, buttery, maple frosting floated so close that I think I got a little on my nose, but the cake just wasn't speaking to me. Images chugged through my head like an old slide projector, layered cakes turned to cupcakes. Mini individual cakes are so elegant. The wind blew harder outside and my hands craved something warm. Cookies slid by. Then the slide projector rotated in a new image, this time it was pie with steam escaping out the top.  Pie dough is one of my favorite things to make, but not being a big lover of sweet pies made the image lurch one more time. It was still a pie, but this time it was filled with meat. A meat pie. 'Yes' I confidently announced out loud to nobody listening. Outside the wind blew even harder as if an affirmation of my decision and again my fingers yearned for warmth. Just then the slide projector turned one more time to what would be the final image - a handheld meat pie. Decision done.

Hot Coleslaw Soup

Do you ever pick up old recipe books and read them? I love 'um! I love everything about them - the lack of direction, the casualness of the ingredient amounts and the expectation that you will just know things (like when they say: cook till done. Um, when?) Unlike any modern cookbook, there are no indexes to learn what an ingredient is, no explanation about the recipes and there are no pictures ether. And the truth is, I wouldn't want any. It would distract from the simplicity, not to mention kill the surprise of what some of the these dishes end up looking like!

Fellow Food Blogger, Christianna, picked up one such book about a year ago and was inspired to challenge other foodies to recreate these recipes. So once each month we all eagerly await the email with an image from the old book telling us what the new dish is. Or, what it was. It's our job to put our own spin on it.

Hot Slaw is this months winning recipe; so many options with this. I have a page full of ideas. The hot dressing intrigued me the most, but I wanted to lighten it up. The versatility of cabbage makes it one of my favorites. The idea of this hot, tender cabbage with a creamy dressing pulled me in the direction of a creamy, caramelized soup. Simple, easy and could be recreated to be lighter on the hips.

Think French onion soup meets spicy coleslaw. Mixing onions with fennel and cabbage, then sauteing until everything becomes a deep golden hue ... the final product almost gives off a hint of a smoky bacon. This easy cabbage soup turned out to be a testament of the simpler days when directions weren't needed.

Cookbooks aren't just for cooking anymore, but they used to be! And this Fat and Happy Hot Slaw Soup will help you momentarily relive those days of lore.

Rabbit and Sausage Cassoulet for the Monthly Recipe Swap

It's the beginning of new month which means it's time for another Burwell General Store Recipe Swap. The recipe swaps started as a junk store book find.  This book All-Day Singin' and Dinner on the Ground  intrigued Christianna to redevelop these recipes into her own. The swap grew from there.

I was excited about this months recipe: Wild Rabbit with Vegetables. This meant I needed to go rabbit hunting. And when I say rabbit hunting, I mean I biked over to the meat packing district in the West Loop of Chicago to purchase my rabbit out of the back door of an old warehouse. I did wear my camouflage pants to be in full rabbit-hunting spirits!

With the fall season approaching I wanted to make something warm and hearty. A cassoulet is similar to classic stew or casserole even, filled with rich slow cooked beans. The perfect welcome to the approaching cool season.

If you haven't had rabbit before, it's tough to describe - it can resemble a tender yet wild chicken but so much better. When prepared in this cassoulet, the rabbit is so moist and tender it falls right off the bone. The beans become almost creamy.

Don your best hunting gear for a trip to the butchers, then get this rabbit in the oven. It's time for a delicious Fat and Happy fall casserole!

Recipe Swap: Ginger Molasses Frozen Cheesecake Nibs

What: August Recipe Swap
Original Recipe: Sorghum Molasses Cookies
Recreated Recipe: Frozen Ginger Molasses Cheesecake Nibs


This was nearly my first Recipe Swap fail. I was convinced that I needed to create a molasses beer cookie that had an oozing ginger center. I was so close to an amazing, porter based molasses cookie with a creamy ginger center that I could almost taste it. In fact, I did taste it ... a few times. It was so close, but I just couldn't quite get the recipe where it needed to be.


Imagine now that it's Sunday afternoon, just a few mere hours from when my recipe is supposed to be posted and I over tweaked my cookie recipe so much that these cookies now look like sad, flat little tortillas. So much for the puffy, gooey middle.

Bacon Jam Stuffed Bread Rolls - Recipe Swap

This month's recipe swap is a Jelly Cake - two layers of a spice cake with jelly between the layers. The goal of the swap is to modify the recipe by at least 3 ingredients or modify the method. I wanted to play pretty close to the original ingredients but really deviate from the the idea of a sweet cake.

Two words: Bacon Jam. Or you can call it Bacon Jelly, which is also two words. Either way. My first step was to get away from the sweet, fruit jelly - that's where the bacon jam comes in. Next, my goal was to create a non-cake-like-layered item while using the base cake ingredients.

Add in some yeast, remove the baking soda and cream of tartar, move the spice ingredients to the bacon jelly and WAMO - a rolled homemade bacon jam bun. Successful? Hell yes! It's a Fat and Happy homemade bacon bread recipe that I highly suggest trying today.

Smore Potato Muffin and Portable Smore Hand Pies

What: The Burwell General Store Recipe Swap

Recipe: Potato Donuts
Goal: To change at least 3 key ingredients and/or the technique
Result: Potato Smore Muffins and Portable Smore Hand Pies

In my previous recipe swap recipes (Fat and Happy Blog swap recipes) I deviated more from the ingredients rather than the technique. Since this original potato donut is deep fried, something my thighs just don't let me do, my creation this time changes the baking technique more than the ingredients themselves.

After trying a few variations on the dough I settled on a winner, but still had not decided on the best cooking method. The dough saw the grill, the oven and the stove top in the form of cookies, balls and shapes that can't even be described.

A memory hit me of my Mom making these crazy muffins that involved wrapping bread dough around a marshmallow and baking it. That marshmallow muffin was the answer. But you'll also see a second baking option that is almost an empanada or a smore hand pie. I couldn't resist adding this because I could see this traveling well, say camping, where you could pop it over the fire for a minute to heat it up and it's good to go.

Both methods are fun, just completely different outcomes. And above all else, it's just fun to play with recipes.

Caramel Apple Trifle - Recipe Swap

It's time for another Burwell General Store recipe swap (the goal is to recreate a recipe from an old hymnal recipe book and make it your own by updating or changing at least 3 ingredients); this time it's a classic taffy apple recipe. 

Caramel and apples conjure up so many ideas it's hard to narrow this down to one recipe. Certainly ice cream came to mind but I've already made a lovely Apple Ice Cream Pie with Granola Crust and Caramel Drizzle.  Since the taffy apples were on a stick, I ran down a list of apple-stick thoughts, but nothing really spoke to me.


The trifle idea came to me as I stared at three empty glass vases that were just begging to be filled. Layers of lightly sauteed apples, creamy mascarpone and ricotta pastry cream, tart strawberries all topped off with a spiced whipped cream and fresh mint leaf. A crunchy, flaky pie crust layer found it's way into two of the trifles, while the third remained crust free and gluten free.

Served at my annual homemade pasta party, this was another tremendous Fat and Happy hit with the crowd! If you are really missing the sticks from the original recipe, you could try eating this with chopsticks.


Tips and Techniques:  This is a super simple and forgiving recipe, use crumbled cake instead of the pie crust, or cream cheese instead of the mascarpone.



Caramel Apple Trifle


Putting it all together:


Decide on your container, I used a variety of glass 'vases' and canning jars; try using a large glass punch container or small individual glass dessert dishes.


Make the pastry cream and caramel, saute the apples, make the pie crust (or substitute cake or phyllo dough). Let everything cool off to room temperature, then layer away. Start with a layer of the sauteed apples, drizzle with the caramel, scoop in the apple pastry cream and a spoon of the applesauce, add a layer of broken pie crust and then start over with the sauteed apples.

I added the sliced strawberries on the top layer, then topped it off with the spiced whipped cream and fresh mint leaves. Serve immediately or store in the fridge for a few hours until ready to serve.



Layer Ingredients:

6 ripe strawberries, sliced
Mint leaves, for decoration on top of the trifle
1/4 cup applesauce
Roughly 2 cups of baked pie crust
Ricotta mascarpone pasty cream (recipe below)
Classic caramel sauce (recipe below)
 Sauteed apples (recipe below)
Cinnamon spiced whipped cream (recipe below)



Ricotta Mascarpone Pastry Cream:

1/2 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup ricotta
8 oz mascarpone
1 Tbls lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
2 Tbls sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of allspice
pinch of salt

Lightly mix all of the ingredients together, adjust seasonings if needed.

Classic Caramel Sauce

1/4 cup butter
1/4 heaping cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cream

Melt the butter and the sugar together, let that come to soft boil. Carefully whisk in the cream; simmer for 10 minutes.


Brown Sugar Sauteed Apples

3 apples, 1 red delicious, green grannysmith, jonagold (or pick your three favorites, using various apples will give you the best texture to the finished product)
2 Tbls butter
2 Tbls brown sugar, heaping
squeeze of lemon
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Peel and dice the apples, place in a large saute pan with all the other ingredients. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, tossing often. I didn't want these mushy like a pie but rather I wanted them to have some bite to them; cook to your preferred doneness.


Cinnamon Spiced Whipped Cream

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tbls sugar
pinch of cinnamon
splash of vanilla extract

Using a hand mixer or wand, begin to whip the cream and sugar until it begins to hold a peak.
Add in the pinch of cinnamon and splash of vanilla extract, continue to whip until desired stiffness is reached.

 View all my fellow Recipe Swappers at the Recipe Swap page here.

Recipe Swap: Blueberry Applesauce Wacky Cake with Crumb Topping

 

When this months Recipe Swap recipe came through for a wacky cake, I thought how fun, and what easy cleanup. A wacky cake is one of a group of cakes that were popular in the depression era; popular thanks to their ease and accessibility to cheap ingredients. Containing no eggs or butter, they are stirred together in the same pan as cooked in.

The recipe swap rules state you must change at least 3 ingredients and/or the cooking method; essentially make it your own. Initially I set out to keep true to the depression ease and simplistic-ness of the original recipe and ingredients, but somehow Grand Marnier fell into my cake and it just went from there.

Instead of using cocoa as the base, this was my first opportunity to use one of my new Strange Ingredients a friend sent in, vanilla powder. To keep the calories down, I opted for applesauce in place of the oil, for that reason, the texture of this cake is reminiscent of a quick bread. When you get a good forkful of the cake, a blueberry and the crumb topping, it makes for one good fat and happy bite.




Tips and Techniques: Switch up the flavor of this cake with ease by changing the fruit filling. Try Strawberries, peaches or apples! If you don't have vanilla powder, either add an extra tablespoon of the Grand Marnier or add a teaspoon of liquid vanilla extract.


Burwell General Store Recipe Swap: Blueberry Applesauce Wacky Cake with Crumb Topping


Blueberry Filling for Wacky Cake
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 Tbls sugar
squeeze of lemon
1 tsp corn starch

Make the blueberry filling first.  Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan, cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside until ready to use. This step can be done a day or two ahead of time.

Butter Crumb Topping
2 Tbls butter, room temperature
2 Tbls flour
2 Tbls powder sugar


Place all the ingredients on a plate, use a fork to mash the dry ingredients into the butter. Once it is all combined, set aside until ready to use.

Vanilla Powder Wacky Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbls vanilla powder
1 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup water
1 tsp champagne vinegar
1 Tbls Grand Marnier
5 Tbls applesauce

Have the blueberry filling and the crumb topping ready. Once you add the vinegar to this cake, you need to work quickly.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Have the one cup of water ready. In a greased 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 baking dish, sift in all the dry ingredients and stir with a fork. Make 3 holes in the flour and place the Grand Marnier in one hole and the applesauce in the second. Quickly add the vinegar to the third and then pour in the water while stirring everything together with a fork.

Spoon the blueberry filling over the top of the cake, and then crumble the butter crumb topping on top of the filling.  Place in the oven until a toothpick comes out just about clean, the crumb topping will not brown so don't look to that as an identifier. My cake took around 40 minutes or so but keep an eye on it - it's better to under cook this than over cook.

Remove from the oven and cool slightly. If serving this warm, a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipping cream would be a fantastic addition.

Please take a moment to visit my fellow Recipe Swappers

Lindsay was the first blogger I asked to do the swap.  I found her blog after a day of surfing around looking for new recipes, and became hooked by the honesty and simplicity written into her recipes. She loves Oregon, its ingredients and Portland's lifestyle, and it shows.

Chef Dennis joined us on the Lemon Cake swap.  A veteran chef in his own right, we are lucky to have his Italian Lemon Pear Cake contribution to the swap.  The rest of his fantastic food blog can be seen at morethanamountfull.

Mari lives in Oregon wine country and is a budding wine connoisseur.  I fell in love with her use of Pinot Gris in the glaze for her (gluten-free!) Lemon Cake swap, which was her inaugural recipe with us. Visit her at The Unexpected Harvest.

Boulder Locavore’s  starting point for the recipe swap is always a local-seasonal-organic combination, though her love of international cuisine and cocktails often work their way into the mix!

Joy, holding down a dairy-intolerant household, doesn't let that restrict her love of flavors and food, in fact, I think it inspires her to do what she does. When you visit her blog, be sure to check out her "ubiquitous about page" and the balcony gardening category.

Monique has been food blogging since 2007, and was very gracious as I talked to her about my personal project of the recipe swap while on a professional work call with her. It must have gone okay, because she joined in, and her first recipe was a BLT-inspired chicken pot pie.  I'm so glad to have her on board.  

Shari is our first International participant!  Writing from down under, we cherish her voice in the swap because she brings the results of additional recipe challenges; the seasons are flipped from where most of us are blogging.  Her first swap was Grandma's Chicken Pie and Drop Biscuits, which she made in the dead of summer.

Jennifer's tag line says it all: Life is too short to eat bad food.  At her blog, Adventuresome Kitchen, you will find a passionate food-type, feeding her family amazing meals and living to blog about it. Jennifer joined in at Grandma's Chicken Pie and Drop Biscuits. 

The Cake Duchess.  The name says it all, and Lora's recipes are rock solid, creative, decadent, inspiring. What other adjectives can I throw at her?  Her innaugural recipe was Grandma's Chicken Pie and Drop Biscuits, a rare savory recipe for her to develop. 

Pola is a new blogger from Italy, transplanted to the cold Midwestern plains. After years of calling mom to check on cooking times and temperatures of family Italian recipes, she started writing them down. In the process, she is hoping to help new friends discover how to cook simple and authentic Italian food. 

Mary is a lifelong resident of the San Francisco Peninsula and was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2007. Her search fora  gluten-free chocolate chip cooke that didn't taste, look or feel gluten-free inspired her blog and she's been happily baking ever since.

Jamie blogs at Random Acts of Food and has a love for food that only an Italian could! She enjoys cooking and baking in all cuisines for her family and friends.  Originally from Long Island, Jamie now resides in Boston with her amazing boyfriend.

Crissy and Lauren are two recent college graduates who are embracing their passion for all things culinary in the smallest yellow kitchen that ever was.  Their balanced diet of equal parts savory and sweet helps them add a little zest to what they do best!

Claire blogs with Texas pride from Dallas. She loves chicken fingers, Law and Order SVU and is left handed. We are excited to have her!

Nay blogs about food at Spicy Living from Portland, Oregon, and joined in on the Lemon Cake swap.  She incorporated lavender and lemon into cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Cindy, co-worker, food lover, all-around awesome person.  I may have guilted her into the swap, and then I found out her knowledge about US restaurants is almost encyclopedic so I know she's game. Check out her quirky and fun blog.

Sabrina Modelle blogs at The Tomato Tart from the San Francisco bay area, and for her first swap (the Lemon Cake) she made a Brown Sugar Lemon Rosemary Cake with Rosemary Caramel.  How's that for inspiration?

Recipe Swap: Grandma's Updated Chicken Pie ...aka... BLT Turkey Champagne Pot Pie

The Recipe Swap - take a recipe from a hymnal recipe book and make it your own updated version by changing at least 3 ingredients - sounds right up my alley. The recipe book (Alfred Brumley's All-Day Singin' and Cooking on the Ground) is from the days when exact measurements weren't needed. A pinch of this, a pinch of that and bake till it's done.

I personally love the generality of this type of written recipe because truth be told, it's how I cook. I've had to learn to write measurements down and it's always not always easy.

The Recipe Swap is a brilliant idea from fellow blogger Christianna at Burwell General Store and I'm thrilled to be a part. The chosen recipe is Grandma's Chicken Pie and Drop Biscuits, so essentially two recipes are in play for this swap.

My inspiration to affect Grandma's Chicken Pie came from a classic BLT sandwich. With bacon added to the pie portion, swap the chicken for turkey since we don't eat chicken, mustard greens take the place of the lettuce and oven-roasted thyme tomatoes on the side take on the bulk of the BLT sandwich flavor.

Taking change a step farther, I opted to create a sauce from champagne; it's a fun and lightly sweetened twist that marries surprisingly well with bacon (think hangover breakfast with mimosas).

For the biscuit topping, adding a hint of lemon and brie lighten up a typical heavy-laden topping and are ever so faintly reminiscent of a lightly toasted brioche bread with mayo. It's a hearty, warming, fat and happy comfort meal to be enjoyed now before spring has us all looking for lighter fare.

Below I've listed the gang of fearless food blogger participants, please visit their sites to see their take on the chicken pie recipe; and if you listen closely...very closely, I'll bet you can hear the singing in the background.

Recipe Swap participants:

Christianna: Burwell General Store
Dennis: More than a Mountfull 
Mari: The Unexpected Harvest
Nay: Spicy Living
Toni: Boulder Locavore
Sabrina The Tomato Tart
Jennifer: Adventuresome Kitchen
Shari: Good Food Week
Joy: The Herbed Kitchen
Cindy: Cindy: Tyro Tidbits 


Grandma's Updated Chicken Pie... aka...
BLT Champagne Pot Pie

3 slices bacon plus 2 for topping
1 heaping cup diced yellow onion
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
1 tsp dried thyme
1 cup shitake mushrooms
1 cup cooked turkey
2 cups champagne
1/2 cup cream
1 tbls butter, room temperature
1 tbls flour
1 cup chopped mustard greens
1 tbls fresh thyme

Chop 3 slices of bacon, cook in a large saucepan until nearly desired crispness is reached. Add in the onions, celery, carrots and dried thyme and saute over medium heat until the onions just begin to soften, about 7 minutes. Add in the mushrooms and cooked turkey, saute another 5 minutes.

Pour the champagne into the pan and let that simmer for a minute.  In the meantime,thoroughly mix the butter and flour together (use a fork or just use your fingers.) Add the butter flour mixture and the cream to pan. Simmer the whole batch  until the sauce begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Place the chopped mustard greens and fresh thyme on top, remove from heat.

Pour the bacon-turkey mixture into a casserole dish. Top with the lemon biscuit mixture (below).  Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes; the biscuits will become brown on top and the creamy mixture will be bubbling on the edges.

While the pot pie is baking, fry up the remaining 2 slices of bacon and crumble.

To serve, place a scoop of the BLT Pot Pie on a shallow bowl, add a couple of roasted tomatoes and top with the crumbled bacon.


Lemon Brie Biscuits

1 1/2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbls sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbls lemon zest
4 tbls chilled butter
2 ounces brie cheese
1 cup buttermilk

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add in the lemon zest, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda. Cut the chilled butter into tiny cubes and add to the flour mixture.  Using your hands, mix the butter into the flour until pea-sized are formed.

Chop the brie cheese, as well as you can chop a very soft cheese anyway, add to the flour mixture and toss.

Slowly drizzle in the buttermilk a little at a time; depending on the humidity of the day, you may need slightly more or less liquid. Using your hand, lightly mix the dough just until it comes together; the dough should be somewhat crumbly rather than one big wet ball.

Pick up sections of the dough and lightly place on top of the pot pie. Bake as directed above (@375 degrees for 40 minutes.)


Oven Roasted Thyme Tomatoes

12 small grape tomatoes
1 tbls olive oil
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tbls flaky salt

Line a small oven pan with tin foil. Lay the tomatoes on the foil and drizzle with the olive oil,lightly toss the tomatoes to cover with the olive oil. Sprinkle the thyme sprigs over the tomatoes. Place in the oven along with with the pot pie (@375 degrees for 40 minutes), bake until the tomatoes just begin to burst. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with flaky salt.