A Sunflower Necklace and Cornbread Pot Pie

Sunflower Necklace 

This sunflower is hand carved bone. When I started making jewelry I thought bone was a really creepy medium. Then I began to find it beautiful. Since we have no control over animals being killed for whatever reason I like to see everything to the bone utilized. 

With the dark tones on this piece, I think it can translate to being worn in any season. Available in my Bonanza shop.

Instagram
I finally joined and am trying to get my bearings on Instagram. If you would like to link up, you can find me here.

Cornbread Pot Pie
While home on a snow day from work I caught some of the Chew on TV. Chefs were competing for the best comfort food dish that falls under a healthy Weight Watchers dish. One chef made a cornbread pot pie. I was intrigued when Mario Batali stated it was the best thing he tasted all year! 

The original recipe can be found here which includes chicken. I'll explain why it looks funny!

Jim and I adapted the recipe to my vegetarian sensitive stomach liking by cooking the following on the stove for the filling. By the way, this is also gluten free.

1.5 cups chopped leeks
2.5 cups of chopped carrots
2.5 cups chopped celery
2.5 cups chopped portabello mushrooms
2.5 tbsp of all purpose gluten free flour
1.25 cups of low fat milk
2 cups of vegetable broth
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 cup green peas
thyme, salt and pepper 
This was cooked to desired texture and taste.

The topping includes (this was my job):
1 cup corn flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg white
1.5 tbsp olive oil
3 ounces milk

The topping was rolled out on parchment paper. The recipe calls for using eight 5 inch dishes which I don't have. So I went with a 9 inch square pan. The filling gets put in the dish and the corn topping gets laid over that.

On the show, the corn topping was messily place on top of each dish to ooze down the sides. Mmmm! 

Well my topping was super messy. Thinking I could invert the parchment paper and drop the top onto the dish did not work so well. Some of it ended up on the floor! Combine wine with my clumsiness and this it what happens. I guess that was a good thing since it allowed for proper ventilation of the dish!

This was baked at 375 for approximately 30-35 minutes until golden brown. 

While the dish does not look pretty in any way, it was delicious comfort food! We agreed while eating it that potatoes would be perfect in here too. Pot pie was my favorite comfort food growing up and the only thing I missed after becoming a vegetarian. I don't miss the chicken, its just that combo of veggies, gravy and crust that feels so good to eat!

Thank you for stopping by! 

My life is a little nutty right now but hopefully I can keep up with blog visits which is one of my favorite thing to do during a break. 

I'm still working while trying to find my replacement and the house is officially on the market starting today with an open house. Over 25 families came to see the house! Wow! So I now have to wait and see if an offer comes out of this. Anticipation!

Have a great week! ~Val