Pollen and Pot Pies

Spring is getting  much, much closer.  The trees are leafing out,  and the world is slowly getting covered in pollen.

Around here, that means pine pollen, a  yellow dust that covers cars, sidewalks, roads, and if you leave your windows open, all your furniture. Because it's so visible, people blame pine pollen for their spring  allergies, runny noses and watery eyes, but pine pollen is not the culprit. Ragweed, and other weeds and grasses as well as trees like oak, birch and hickories, pecans and such are the real culprits with their much smaller pollen grains that can work their  way into your respiratory system.

Since I'm in my post-chemo reaction stage with  hot red skin on my face, general fatigue and a low  immunity I didn't venture outside, although it would have been a lovely day for weeding and  getting the garden ready for planting. My most strenuous activities today were paying bills and cooking supper. I decided to   make a chicken pot pie from what was left of the  chicken I'd roasted on Tuesday but couldn't find my recipe.  I googled chicken pot pie and was surprised to find  one of my blog posts on the first page. The recipe called for  two sheets of packaged frozen puff pastry.  Of course, I had only one sheet in the freezer, so decided to make my own using my trusted Julia Child  recipe for pâte brisée fine. I made the pastry, lined a casserole dish, covered the pastry with aluminum  foil and pre-baked it.  While it was baking I chopped carrots and onions, sliced some mushrooms, defrosted some frozen peas and shredded the chicken.  Then they all got put in a skillet with some butter, flour, thyme, pepper, parsley and chicken broth. and  were left to bubble away for a bit.

When the  pastry-lined casserole came our of the oven, I removed the  foil, let the  crust cool a little, then spooned in the filling. I covered the top with   latticework using   strips cut from the second piece of pastry,  sprinkled some  chopped parsley on top

and popped it in the oven for about forty five minutes until the crust was golden and the filling was all bubbly. It came out  looking fairly decent and tasted good, too.

All in all it was a pretty nice day, with a delicious supper. I hope your day was as enjoyable.