Speedy-ish Chicken Pot Pie with a side of apartment

So kids, after 3 moves in a single year I've taken the leap and moved into my own place. Hallelujah!

It's been 4 weeks but still no sofa/tables/chairs/decent lighting to speak of. So I've had to improvise. You'd be surprised just how many things a stack of cookbooks can double as...

And I bought a rotary phone. It has that old-fashioned ring and everything! But I have to sit on the floor to use it... Also those shoes were too small on me, bt too gorgeous to give up so I thought I'd just display them randomly.

That folded up newspaper thingy is actually a folded-up cutout of my sofa that I made out of junk mail and pamphlets. This is what happens when you have no plans and no furniture on a weekend in Toronto. You make cut outs of would-be furniture and give them names, a la Tom Hanks.

Hurry up EQ3 dammit.
But before I get too far along this apartment tangent, back to the chicken pot pie! I bought some ready-made, ready-rolled puff pastry (perfect), and a carton of eggs, a bag of shredded cheddar cheese and threw in whatever I had in my veggie shelf. To be specific:

4 eggs
Glug of cream
2 cups/1 bag shredded cheese
1 tbsp mustard
Thyme/rosemary/oregano
1 tbsp garlic
Diced veggies: celery, carrot, leeks, potato, all cut to the same size
Cooked shredded chicken (or leftover rice/risotto/chicken pieces)
salt/pepper to taste

Lazily stretch the ready-rolled pastry over a greased pie dish. Saute the veggies over high heat (they won't have time to cook fully in the oven otherwise), and let them cool. Whisk eggs, cream seasonings, cheese then add everything else. Plop the whole mix into the ready-rolled pastry that you've previously slaved over, cover with the other half, poke with a fork and bake in the over for 45 mins at 375F until golden. Presto! Speedy-ish Chicken Pot Pie. (The -ish being for the ridiculous veggie chopping required).

In retrospect, a better version would have been with mascarpone and fewer eggs, which would eliminate that eggy/poultry-ish aftertaste that comes with using too many eggs no matter how fresh. But I had just come back from the supermarket for the third time this week and there was no way I was going back again for a tub of cheese! So all-eggs it was.

By the way, does anyone know what I mean by that eggy taste? In arabic we call it zankha, but none of my non-arabic friends have ever heard of it. Some googling is needed.

Ahh this post has gone on forever! Ok cue Cribs-style ending where I shoo you away from the front porch of the house while you cut to bloopers of the "this-is-where-the-magic-happens" scene...

Sunken Chocolate Cake & Trashy Paperbacks

A rain-drenched Saturday back home... chocolate cake definitely needed. I had the most ingenious idea of baking it in a pie mold and halving the baking time. The result: sunken, fudgey heaven.

I spent the rest of the day with my latest find: a trashy '50s paperback from The Monkey's Paw The man who sold it to me had the most fabulous moustache-beard combo. He was the splitting image of the last Csar.

March Madness on a Monday Morning ( I lie, it's 9PM)

Shake shake shake senora, shake your body line!

I've been doing the calypso! All day dammit, and at work too no less!

That's what you get when you spend your snowed-in saturday night watching Beteljeuse in your flannel pyjamas and matching heels...



I remember watching this film when I was 8 (ish? someone do the math and tell me). But now that I've seen it all grown-up-ish... did anyone else think it was a little anticlimactic? As in, he spends the whole damn movie trying to escape the lego limbo, only to be end up being sent back in one single 10-minute scene. Plus, were those some crappy effects or were those some crappy effects??

Ah well, I'm going back to the calypso... you, lower the limbo stick. thank you. now jump in the line.

(hiya March!)

Her CL Life, or A (Very Late) February Linkfest!

My name is RocM and I am a CL junkie.

I would add 'sadly' to that declaration except that my CL adventures have kept me oh-so-very amused this month. Curry-Guitar swaps? Fake aliases? Library blind dates? Eccentric email exchanges? Is there any other way to brighten up a misreable V-day-ridden February?? Me thinks not.

But alas, I think it's time to move on (already). I think it was my last email from a handyman with two first names that did it. Anywho, my closure comes in the form of a list of some of the greatest CL gems I've found recently. I'd post screenshots, but somehow I think it's very befitting that I post the 30-day links instead. So very CL: fleeting and eccentric. Like smoke signals from random-land, just follow the trail. (and freak out when you get a glimpse of whoever's on the other end!)

this m4w is a classic. he has the makings of either a comedic genius or a total psycho (er I mean, catch). but remember girls, if you're thinking of applying, let's not get too crazy with the curves now, he's not looking for a fatty. just a DD.

this other m4w is so incredibley depressing, I didn't know whether to snigger or sob.

a brand new kitchenaid standmixer for $3?? shut. up. In yellow too no less.

F-L-A-G. that's right, I'm the one flagging you every week. Never liked that song anyway.

this is why you keep it somewhere handy, like say your finger. (I do hope you find it though)

and lastly, the best of-the-best.

wait! I take that back, this one is the best-of-the-best!



Ciao Craig.



RocM admits: I may be off CL for now (I've given myself a 2 month restraint period) but I'll be back trolling around there soon no doubt. no doubt.

The library is a sacred place...

... no heart-breaking allowed.

This weekend I was stood up at the public library. It was in front of the Merriam Webster shelf on the 2nd floor. So after waiting for a good 15 minutes, I sat down and pulled a copy of "I Love it When You Talk Retro!" and read a few chapters. Then I went home and baked myself a gorgeous red velvet cake.

This recipe is courtesy of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, that I bought from said bakery in Greenwich Village last Christmas. It's a tiny tiny place with tiers and tiers of red velvet cupcakes (heaven!). And behind the counter are another bunch of stacked pans of frosted cupcakes all ready for restocking. Every once in a while somone screws up and slides a shelf in at the wrong angle and the whole thing comes crashing down in one fell swoop. I'm still not sure what they do with the smashed but still perfectly-delicious cupcakes that they then take mysteriously back to the kitchen...

Esstentially the recipe is exactly like this one from Smitten Kitchen (*heart*) except with butter instead of canola oil (which is reserved only for low-fat taste-free bran carrot muffins and the like, sorry SK).

But the real secret lies in the fluffy frosting... I've never tasted anything like it, flavour or texture-wise. It's very sweet, buttery, fluffy but not as solid as buttercream, but denser than whipped cream... very unusual. Then I discovered it was a boiled-milk frosting that I've never heard of. Luckily for you lovely people someone else has published it (just double the quatity and don't stop whisking the milk or else it'll go lumpy).

8 Signs that your semi-blind date will not be followed by another

(Purely hypothetical of course)


1. You start the night off on the line "I think I'll just have a drink instead."

2. The waiter looks at you, then looks at him then seems to think "how the hell did this happen?" You might be delusional and/or projecting, but either way you find yourself wondering the same thing.

3. You position your purse between the two of you on the sofa, and move it further away from you during the course of the night. One hour later it's 1.5 meters away, pressed right up against him as he's sitting there squished in the corner.

4. You use conversation topics as deterrents of physical contact of any kind. Some ideas include: the heavy perogy dinner you had an hour ago, your father (watch him jump), assorted emotional baggage.

5. You have more chemistry with the waiter than you do with your date. This is confirmed every time he stops by your table to fill your glass.

6. In an effort to avoid talking about yourself (too misleading), you ramble on and on about nothing. You end a 10 minute nonsense monologue with a quizzical expression and wonder what the hell just came out of your mouth. Then it's back to silent sipping.

7. You spend the many awkward silences plotting how you will casually inform your date that he's been downgraded to the friend zone. That or what's on tv later tonight.

8.You spend the car ride home telling yourself NO. MORE. CRAIGSLIST. (seriously Self, for good this time, ok?)


Ahhh... "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" Thank you Ms. Austen.

Now entering a blogging-free zone

Watch your step (mind the gap).

So how exactly did I get here? Well let's see... it was sometime back in December when I started off at major work drama central, right next door to the local idea pool (running dry), took a right at holiday party excess, past the interesction of January funk and horrendous VISA bill and now... here I am. Blocked and my feet hurt.

Merry Christmas!

(via we.heart.it)

2009 in 9 songs

These probably won't mean anything to anyone but me, but at least the songs are great!

Winter

Confession Thursday No. 2

Confession: I have the biggest girl-crush on Joan Holloway.

Why? Because of...

Three limericks & a haiku (cookies on the side)

 

There once was a girl on e.blogger
who had words and baked goods to offer
she whipped up a storm
with her pen and her forn(o)
and mailed them all to another

That's right, I've joined a blogger cookie swap! My partner was Ms. Batter-Splattered herself, the lovely Molly from Arkansas. We were asked to send cookies (of any kind) and a haiku. The Rococoa Miss sent a dozen chocolate-covered linzer cookies (recipe dusted off of this corner of my bookshelf), and this...

A quick breath and a moment of zen

Ah, one last moment of zen before the holiday chaos that is next week. Quick round-up: 6 holiday parties, 2 girls' nights out, 3 cakes, 1 cookie swap, and... am I missing anything else? Oh yeah, one ugly sweater party!

I try so hard not to make my posts too girly, but sometimes I fail so misreably... :) This is totally and unabashedly pink and pretty all over.

(photos via we.heart.it)

And now for a quick Christmas commercial break...

Before we all collectively overdose on candy canes and radio Christmas carols, let's take a quick break shall we? For the sake of our own sanity. So, let me tell you a little something I recently learnt about the inner workings of the Mind of a Man from the great Steve Harvey (and his awesome book). Now I used to think I was some postmodern feminist that didn't see differences between men and women, only between people, but that's a little naiive. Call it nature, call it nuture, call it evolution, whichever way you slice it, we're different. So let you tell you a little bit about what I've learnt. My two cents on Men. Call it my Christmas Commerical. My Relationship PSA, if you will.

Confession Thursday No.1

I shamelessly stole this post idea from a blog I came across yesterday (I totally forgot where-- if this is you, please let me know!)

Confession: When I was 12, I stole a seashell from Art Class. It wasn't particularly special, but I think of it as my cat mask...