You Know It's Got To Be Good...

...if you start out with this much butter. I have to admit I've been in a colossal rut lately. I haven't felt inspired to do much. I haven't felt like cleaning or creating or cooking. Well, I did in theory but everything just felt like too much of a chore. " I don't feel like rolling out sugar cookies...I can't eat them anyway...Alfredo sauce takes too long...we'll just do leftovers". You get the idea. I had a bit of a feeling sorry for myself breakdown today and the Lord just sort of intervened and made some things stand out to me that I hadn't thought about. Like the new quote on the sidebar. I used to dream of owning a house and all I can see are unfinished projects and ugliness, a lack of counter space and less than stellar appliances. I've felt lost and unfulfilled and have found myself saying that 'this isn't what I prepared for, this isn't what I saw myself doing with my life'. But if I were doing something else I'd be missing it. I'd be missing my girls growing up and sharing life with them. So, with some help, I got things into gear. This is my job- and it's a really important one, so I should get on with it.


A few months back Christy linked to this wonderful apricot tart and I read that post again drooling over its yumminess. That tart wasn't in the cards because I determined that I was only going to use ingredients in the house for dinner but it lead me to a pie crust recipe which gave me the inspiration for chicken pot pie tonight. In the past I've made it with just a Bisquick biscuit top and my whole family loves it. But it doesn't have that great homemade flavor plus it has hydrogenated oil in it so I don't use it anymore. It was my very first time to make a pie crust and I haven't done it before because I thought it would be too difficult- but I was so wrong. Not only is it easy, it seems to be idiot proof too- long story. And even though it was my first attempt at making a pie crust I decided to do a 50/50 blend of whole wheat flour and white flour. It turned out perfectly. It was still buttery and flaky and delicious. I think it would make a great crust for apple pie or anything else you could possibly make with a crust. I really didn't even have the right veggies but I improvised with peas, corn, spinach and black-eyed peas- about 3.5 pounds of veggies for two pies. You have to feel good about that. Plus chicken breast. If it weren't for all the butter in the crust it would be totally healthy. But as it is you aren't eating *that* much crust since I only put it on the top.

I decided for a nice little surprise, I'd use some teensy butterfly and flower cookie cutters that I bought forever ago ($5 at Ross- score!) to top the pie.
Then I left the room for a minute and the girls decided to surprise me back. See how thick some of the cutouts are?

They begged to be able to roll out the dough too. I figured that they couldn't make *that* much of a mess so I let them... And they loved it. They were all smiles and didn't want to stop playing with it all to eat dinner.

But it all turned out very nicely and I felt happy and fulfilled. The girls were all smiles and they scarfed down the dinner that they "helped" make. I need to really tweak the filling because I wasn't totally happy with that but, whatever, next time...