Chicken Pot Pie Crumble (and a few other dishes)

Chicken Pot Pie Crumble. This is seriously yumtastic! Definitely adding this to the list of favorite comfort foods. This recipe has your basic pot pie filling, but instead of pie crust, you make a Parmesany pie-like crumble that's sprinkled on top.

Click HERE for the recipe.

I did make some changes to the original recipe. (You can see my version by clicking HERE.) The only veggies in the original were celery, carrots, and peas. I eliminated the celery, reduced the amount of carrots and peas, and added yellow squash, green beans, and red pepper. More colour, more flavor, more nutrition. Also, the original recipe has two steps: saute the onions, celery, and carrots and set aside, then make the cream sauce. I sauteed the onions (and some garlic) in olive oil, then, without removing those ingredients, I proceeded to made the cream sauce. Finally, I cut the crumble ingredients in half.

Parmesan-Sage Baked Porkchops. Basic breaded pork gets a kick with lemon zest and sage. Quite simple, and just bursting with flavor. Definitely would make again.

Click HERE for the recipe.

Baked Spiced Chickpeas. I've made roasted garbanzos (chickpeas) before using only Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt as the seasoning, and really liked them. Kinna reminded me of CornNuts. I thought this recipe using a cumin-based spice mix sounded interesting so I tried them. Verdict: Meh. The cumin flavor is almost too strong, and the spice mixture caused them to brown too quickly so the chickpeas weren't as crunchy as I would have liked.

Click HERE for the recipe.

Corn dog muffins. So simple - a box of corn bread mix, some hot dogs, a little cheese. The idea is good, but the recipe needs some tweaking. The first batch I made, I put too much batter in the muffin tins so they formed a crown when baked, and they didn't want to come out of the muffin tin, so when I tried to remove them, the tops separated from the bottoms. (Less batter and muffin liners would probably prevent this problem.) The other thing was that I didn't like the dough to dog ratio. Although you'd lose the corn dog look, I think it would taste better if you diced the dogs into small pieces so they were incorporated throughout the dough.

Click HERE for the recipe.