Masterpiece Sandwiches

It was leftover night again. Nobody likes leftovers unless they look nothing like the original. Today's meal used up the two big pork chops from last night and, with some home made bread and veggies, I made a delicious meal for 5!

Masterpiece Sandwiches for 4 or 5
Leftover meat - either roast beef, chicken, turkey, pork chop or pork tenderloin - 2 - 3 cups, thinly sliced
8 - 10 slices hearty bread
6 white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 green pepper, sliced into strips
2 small onions, any color, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 cup grated mozzarella
2 Tbsp. Ranch or Italian dressing
1 tsp. oil
Salt & pepper

1. Prepare all the vegetables and slice the meat.
2. Heat a medium fry pan. Pour oil in.
3. Fry the onions until they begin to soften.
4. Add the mushrooms and peppers to the onion and if there is room, add the meat too. Otherwise, heat another fry pan and reheat those leftovers!
5. Toast the bread, if desired.
6. When the veggies are limp, and the toast is ready, assemble your masterpiece sandwich!
7. Layer each sandwich according to people's preferences, omitting anything they find "yucky". My sandwich is built as follows:
Plate, bread, meat, onions, peppers, mushrooms, cheese, lettuce, dressing, tomato, salt & pepper, bread.
Slice and devour!

Chicken Pot Pie

Last night was cold and miserable out so I decided that the chicken breast in my fridge would be good in a nice, hot, chicken pot pie. I found a recipe in my Company's Coming Chicken cookbook, but I changed it a little to my likings. If you want the original recipe it is called "Meal Under Cover". I still call it Chicken Pot Pie. Husband and I loved it. Boys liked it. Older girl gave it a 4/10. Little girl ate the meat and the crust and would not touch the veggies with gravy on them. It looked lovely in the casserole:

Here's what I used:

Chicken Pot Pie
1 9” pastry crust, unbaked

2 Tbsp. butter

1 ½ cups chopped onion

2 Tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1 ½ cups water

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 cups cubed cooked chicken

1 cup cubed cooked potato

1 cup sliced cooked carrots

1 cup cooked peas

½ cup cooked corn

Melt butter in a large fry pan. Add onion. Sauté until soft and browned.

Mix in flour, salt and pepper. Stir in water until it boils and thickens. Add Worcestershire sauce.

Put chicken and cooked vegetables into the sauce. Pour all into a 2 quart (2 L) casserole. Smooth top.

Roll out pastry a little larger than casserole. Place over top and 1 inch up around sides. Slit. I even brushed the top with milk to give it a golden glow.

Bake at 400°F for 30 minutes. Serves 6.

And if you don't have COOKED chicken, potatoes, carrots, corn and peas? Do what I did: cook them! I peeled some carrots and potatoes and chopped them small. I boiled the potato cubes for 10 minutes and then added the carrots for 3 minutes and then added the frozen corn and peas for the last 2 minutes. 

While the vegetables cooked, I cut raw chicken into 3/4 inch cubes, put 1 Tbsp. butter in a hot pan and fried it. When the vegetables were done, I drained them and set them aside until the onion gravy was ready. It all worked out nicely. I even found time to make an old favorite in there somewhere. It was just like the apple pie I've made before!

It sure was delicious on a cold winter night!

Left-overs pizza

Hello again! Easter is done, and my fridge is full of left-overs. As I've told you before, I often make left overs into pizza. Here is one I made last week, with the cream cheese alfredo sauce and chicken my husband made the night before. No tomato sauce on this one.

I put on some extra red and green peppers and we had a really gourmet pizza. If you ever can, you should try it. Heavenly cheesy and delicious.

Tonight I made some Easter ham and fresh pineapple into a bunch of mini pizzas for the family. They went over just fine, as usual. I made a deep-dish version for myself with mashed potatoes as a crust.  I would NOT recommend that! It was not good. The tomato sauce blended too much with the potatoes and they did not crisp into a crust at all. They blended so much, I could not even really taste any tomato at all. Rather disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. (I got the idea when I remembered the pasta crust pizza I made a while ago that worked really well.) All I can say is that now at least my left-over mashed potatoes are gone! Many people would question why I did not make shepherd's pie instead. Probably because only my husband really likes it.

Oven Baked Chicken

So, here's a new idea - baked chicken! It's not my usual type of baked thing, but it will do. I made chicken breasts into breaded chicken fingers tonight. I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. The red and white checked one. The children used to love this but tonight they weren't very hungry (silly me for giving them a snack this afternoon). They complained a bit, but in the end, ate most of it.

Corn Flaked Chicken Fingers
Cut two or three chicken breasts into "fingers"
Dip them in a combination of:
1 egg (beaten)
3 Tbsp. milk

Coat fingers with a combination of:
3 cups corn flakes - crushed to make 1 cup crumbs
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. melted butter

Bake the coated fingers on a tinfoil lined cookie sheet for 15 minutes at 400 degrees F.
Enjoy!