on indoor jungles, snowy tigers, and chicken pot pie (Anti-recipe #27)

Yes. It's cold out. There is indeed snow piled all around. Yes, I know. But in the Northern Midwest that doesn't phase us much. We pull on our boots and hats and wool things and, well, we go to the zoo! Of course! Well, and also the lovely botanical gardens attached...lush and green with moist earthy air...ahhhh...If the kiddies weren't chomping at the bit to go see the "yi-ion" and "monko George" I could've sat in those divine rooms all day, smelling the warm green growing-ness all around me.

Will summer ever be here??

The kiddies loved the animals though and the temps warmed to a balmy 25 degrees.

A perfect outing.

And then, to come home to chicken pot pie stewing away IN THE CROCK POT! YIPPEE! (recipe below pictures.)

All in all, a wonderful day off. And it is 8pm. And the children are in bed asleep. Ahhhhhhh.

oh, green growing things. how i miss thee.

checking out the koi fish.





i like it here.

off to see the animals...

MONKO GEORGE. HI! HI MONKO GEORGE!!

oooh. YI-ION! YI-ION take a nappy.
Shhhh. NI-NI Yi-ion.

Chicken pot pie in the crockpot...
So I was reading the crock pot lady (see link in my link bar at right) recently and was inspired to try chicken pot pie in the crock pot today. I did refer to her recipe but, as always with real recipes, found it to have a little too much measuring involved. So here is what I did.

I threw into my crock pot roughly 1 cup of chicken pieces (leftover from our roasted chicken the other night). Use whatever you have on hand. (I would've used more if I had it) Add whatever veggies you have. I used about 1 1/2 cups of frozen veggies. (I would've used more but that was the end of the giant bag we get from Costco) Ideally I would've chopped up onions to throw in but we are out. (Grocery shopping on the docket for tomorrow!) I would've added a chopped up potato but we were in a hurry to get out of the door.  Mix up 2 cups of stock, a handful of flour, and whisk to create a light white sauce (or you can use a can of cream of chicken soup - I don't because that sort of thing seriously grosses me out). You can make a real white sauce, starting with flour and butter then adding stock, if you want it thicker. Mine was fairly soupy. Add this into the crockpot. Mix up two cups of biscuit batter (using Pamela's or Bisquick). I am out of Pamela's so I used some GF flour, added appx 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp of baking soda, mixed in 2/3 stick of butter, some milk (enough for a wet batter) and threw in some garlic salt for good measure. Lump this into your crock pot. IT WILL RISE TO THE SURFACE. (I was worried about that one) Set it on low and roughly 6 hours later.... YUM...super easy (rich!) and really good.