Engagement rodent?

  • Jenn: What if... instead of a diamond ring, you asked me to marry you with a squirrel?
  • Max: What?
  • Jenn: Like, if you asked me to be your wife... with a rodent.
  • Max: ...
  • Jenn: People would see me walkin' around with a squirrel on my shoulder and be like... "Why do you have a squirrel?" And I would say, "I'M GETTING MARRIED!"
  • Max: BAAAAHAHHAHAHAA
  • Jenn: It would be excellent.
  • Max: I think we need to break up.

Chicken pot pie - DID NOT BURN HOUSE DOWN

I totally cooked this. It was awesome.  

I’m pretty domestically-challenged so the fact that I could cook this means it’s super easy and you can do it, too. Unless you’re even more domestically-challenged than I am, at which point I suggest you marry somebody who can feed you. Here’s the recipe I used, I’ve italicized the sections I changed/added.

Recipe (adapted from taste of home): 

Ingredients

  • 2 cups diced peeled potatoes
  • 1-3/4 cups sliced carrots
  • 2/3 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup butter, cubed - the original recipe called for an entire cup of butter but I didn’t want to clog my arteries so I reduced it to a 1/4 cup. There were no complaints.
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1-3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 3/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 4 cups chicken stock (3 cups for filling, 1 cup for marinating chicken)- replaced the broth with stock to add more flavor
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 4 cups cubed cooked chicken
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • 1 cup frozen corn
  • Pastry for two double-crust pies (9 inches)
  • 1 bottle beer
  • 1 clove garlic

Directions

  • Chicken: Cube the chicken and combine with 1 cup chicken stock, minced garlic, a few dashes of salt/pepper, and a few sprinkles of onion powder - add just enough beer to cover the all contents. Let mixture sit for a few hours. Then pour the liquid off into a LARGE sauce pan or wok, add remaining beer form bottle. Carefully add chicken and bring mixture to boil. Then let simmer until all chicken is cooked, stirring occasionally. Drain liquid and set aside.
  • Place potatoes and carrots in a large saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain and set aside.
  • In a large skillet, saute onion in butter until tender. Stir in the salt, thyme and pepper until blended. Gradually stir in 3 cups broth and milk. Stir in flour. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add the chicken, peas, corn, potatoes and carrots; remove from the heat.
  • Line two 9-in. pie plates with bottom pastry; trim pastry even with edge. Fill pastry shells with chicken mixture. Roll out remaining pastry to fit top of pies. Cut slits or decorative cutouts in pastry. Place over filling; trim, seal and flute edges.
  • Bake one potpie at 425° for 35-40 minutes or until crust is lightly browned. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting. Cover and freeze remaining potpie for up to 3 months.
  • To Use Frozen Pot Pie: Shield frozen pie crust edges with foil; place on a baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°; bake 70-80 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. Yield: 2 potpies (6-8 servings each). 

    To use frozen pot pie: Shield frozen pie crust edges with foil; place on a baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°; bake 70-80 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown.
I would actually suggest letting the pie stand for a few hours before serving, to let all the juices soak into the contents. It was much too liquidy when served about a half hour after baking. Our household is made up of a bunch of monsters so I just baked both pies at once. The one we left in the fridge overnight tastes A LOT better, I think because it had time to soak up all the excess liquid.

On Andreas

Andrea has always been one of my least favorite names to pronounce the first time I meet somebody.  I especially hate when it’s written on a name-tag or on some sort of roster and I’m just expected to read it out loud to the person as if I know who she is.   There are just so many different ways to say the damn name and generally if you get it wrong you look like a total asshole.  Observe:

First there’s the “An-”:

  • Ahn?
  • Anne?

Then comes the “-drea”:

  • Dree-uh?
  • Dree-ah?
  • Dray-uh?
  • Dra-ah?

Put it all together and you have eight different ways you can say this name, which means there are seven ways you can fuck it up.  That’s not even counting the different tempos that might be involved with the whole thing.  

In my experience, the Ahns are always more pissed off about you butchering the beginning part of their names than the Annes are, always going off about how “tacky” or “trashy” it makes their name sound when you tack that terrible Anne in front of it. Though I’m not an Andrea of any sort, I’ve always taken offense to this on behalf of the [Anne]dreas and their mothers.   Excuse me Miss Snooty-Patooty [Ahn]drea, [Anne]drea may sound tacky to you (though it doesn’t to the rest of us plebeians) but at least she doesn’t sound like a total bitch. 

I suppose the point is, always go with Ahn when first meeting and “Andrea” as to avoid snobby, bitch-wrath (unless you get off on that sort of thing) and to not name your child Andrea (because it stresses the rest of us out).