Recipe Wednesday: Chicken Pot Pie

Winter is officially here, and those nights aren’t going to get any warmer anytime soon. That’s why, for this last Wednesday of 2020, I’m sharing with you my family’s recipe for (mostly) homemade chicken pot pie, which is the perfect dinner for a cold and blustery night.

It’s a simple recipe, but can be time-consuming. I always make it fresh, meaning I’ve never put it together and then tried baking from frozen, but I find you can shave some time off if you prep it ahead of time (make the crust if you’re not into store-bought, remove the meat from a rotisserie chicken or make and dice a fresh one, etc.) and just put the ingredients together the night you want to make it. But even so, it still requires at least an hour from stovetop to oven to tabletop, so I tend to make this for dinner on a Sunday and then enjoy the leftovers for lunch throughout the week.

I hope you enjoy!

***PSA: This is the last post I’ll be sharing on WordPress – beginning in 2021, my blog will move over to my main site, www.courtneyjhall.com. This blog isn’t going anywhere, I just won’t be posting anything new here. Join me, won’t you?

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Ingredients:

• 2 prepared pie crust (homemade or store-bought; thawed if frozen)
• ¼ cup butter
• 1/3 cup diced onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 ½ tsp fresh thyme
• 1 tbsp minced parsley
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ pepper
• 2 cups chicken broth
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 3 cups cooked, diced chicken (or the meat of one good-sized rotisserie chicken)
• 2 cups frozen peas and carrots
• 1 cup diced potatoes, canned

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400°. Spray the bottom of a deep-dish, preferably glass, pie plate with cooking spray and lay the bottom crust inside so that the edges extend past the edge of the dish. (If using store-bought, you may need to roll out the dough to make it big enough.)
• In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat. Add onions and garlic, cooking until tender.
• Whisk in flour, salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, broth and cream. Whisk until smooth with no lumps.
• Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes or until thickened.
• Stir in chicken, peas and carrots, and potatoes, stirring to combine well.
• Add mixture to prepared pie plate and top with second crust, pinching edges to seal. Cut two crosswise slits in the top of the crust to allow steam to escape. You can also brush with an egg wash at this point – it’s not necessary, but it gives the baked pie a shiny, golden crust.
• Bake for 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cool for at least 20-25 minutes before cutting and serving.

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If you try this, I’d love to hear what you think! Let me know in the comments!

2020: A Year in Review, and 2021: A Look Forward

Before I begin what would typically be a look back at the year just passed, I just need to ask: is there anything I can say about 2020 that hasn’t yet been said?

Probably not. 2020 was…unusual. And not in a positive way. I don’t feel like I have any new insights to offer, any comforting words, any predictions for 2021 because honestly, who could have predicted 2020 would turn out the way it did?

So with that, rather than pretending I have anything to say that can make anyone feel better or change the course of what’s to come, I’m just going to say that I hope 2021 is a better year. For everyone.

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Writing/Designing

A Holiday Gift is still not done.

However, this year it’s not entirely my fault, or the fault of a story that just refuses to be written. I can actually blame it on other authors! Many of you might not know that in my spare time, I work for a company that provides publishing services to indie authors, along with recording, printing, and other services for musicians. In fact, the bulk of our business comes from musicians who use us to produce products – discs, merchandise, etc. – to sell at their shows. When COVID hit, obliterating the live music business, things did not look good for us. In fact, life was kind of terrifying for a while. My husband, who has worked in nightlife for 25 years, immediately lost all gigs (and has yet to get any of them back) and we were 100% reliant on my paycheck. But all of the musicians who relied on us to create their product no longer needed us. As more and more of the things we employees took for granted were cut in efforts to save money, I got to the point where I woke up every day dreading that today was the day I’d be laid off.

But apparently, quarantine was a blessing for (other) authors. With nowhere to go, suddenly they had time to write. And write they did. And then they decided to publish. In April, my hours were cut to 80% in an effort to keep our doors open. By July, as the only one in the company who does what I do, they increased by at least 25% as I tried, and mostly failed,  to keep up with the tsunami of authors buying our services.

I am so fortunate. I held onto my job, at a company I love, at a time when so many others lost theirs and are struggling just to keep a roof over their head and food on their table. But my writing and other creative goals I set for myself this year were forced to take a backseat. To make matters worse, at least for me, my job is remote now. I am not a person who enjoys working from home. I not only like the camaraderie of working in an office and seeing my co-workers every day, but I relied on the 45-minute drive home at night to disconnect from work before getting home to pursue my own interests. Now, I can’t do that. Home is work now, and as someone who needs to have a space that I use solely for my own creative pursuits, I’m struggling to figure that part out.

The good news is that within about a month, I’ll no longer be the only person doing my job. And once that person is trained and can do the job without my help, I hope to be able to return to a less demanding schedule and have time to indulge in my own creative pursuits, like writing and designing.

Wellness

A year in which we were forced to stockpile food and sit in our houses with nothing to do is not a year in which I should expect to have anything good to report on this front. However, I did somehow manage to drop about 1/3 of the weight I wanted to, thanks to an app called DietBet. Turns out money is a good motivator. I’m not sure I’d recommend DietBet, because I found myself anxious enough about losing my $35 bet that I considered some unhealthy things toward the end (as if I could actually go an entire day without eating – ha!) so even though I did end up winning, the amount I won – just $23 more than what I bet – didn’t really make it worthwhile, and I didn’t like the fact that I was considering skipping eating altogether just to make sure I didn’t lose. Your mileage may vary. Strangely, the weight hasn’t come back. Maybe my scale is broken, or maybe it just feels like it’s been a crappy enough year and it’s trying to make me feel good.

I’m starting 2021 with a plan to give my stationery bike more action than it saw in 2020, and a meal plan full of healthy recipes to try. And with the aforementioned helper I’ll be getting at work, there should be less stress-eating…or at least less stress-drinking.

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I think that’s it. Goodbye, and good riddance to 2020. It can’t get any worse in 2021, can it?

Don’t answer that.

Happy New Year!

Book Cover Wednesday

When I’m not writing, I’m designing. And when I’m designing, it’s usually a book cover. I design covers for my own books (those I’ve written, those that are just kernels of ideas, and those I might  never actually write) and for the authors in Five Directions Press. I’ve also recently begun to design covers and formatting print interiors for independent authors of romance, women’s fiction, and historical fiction. You can find more information on my services by checking out The Magenta Quill.

I also love looking at book covers. And on the third Wednesday of every month, I’ll be using my blog to share a book cover I love. This month’s featured cover is “The Traveling Tea Shop” by Belinda Jones.

Enjoy!

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Are you a romance or women’s fiction author in need of cover design or print formatting? Check out The Magenta Quill!

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DISCLAIMER: The covers posted on Book Cover Wednesday are not my designs, but those of other talented cover designers. I claim no involvement in their creation nor ownership over them – I just like them!

Review: The Secret in Sandcastles by Rachael Bloome

I connected with Rachael Bloome on Instagram several years ago, before she published her first book, The Clause in Christmas. Since then, she’s published a total of four books in the Poppy Creek series – the most recent of which, The Meaning in Mistletoe, is part of this month’s #52Booksin52Weeks challenge. I’ve read them all, and am eagerly awaiting book 5!

Each Poppy Creek book revolves around a peripheral character from the previous books – in this case it’s Penny Heart, owner of the local antiques shop. Abandoned by her mother as an infant and wounded by the death of the father who raised her, Penny keeps herself safe by staying put, traveling only in her mind to the beach pictured in a treasured old photograph, and walling off her heart. Until, that is, Colt Davis: Childhood Nemesis returns to town, and sets his sights, and his own heart, on the unattainable Penny.

In true romance novel fashion (because it works!) they’re thrown together in a way that makes it impossible not for them to spend time together. The mayor of Poppy Creek, in an effort to increase tourism, charges Penny with writing an article about the town’s most thrilling adventures. Colt, with his father’s dying wish for him always in the back of his mind, has spent the last several years traipsing around the world in search of the same. The mayor asks him to help Penny come up with a list, and the sparks start to fly.

As Penny works to shed the fears which have kept her from truly experiencing all that life has to offer, Colt finds himself in a position where he has to make a choice: break his promise to his father, or break Penny’s heart.

It’s a romance novel, so we know the final destination. But the journey to get there is a sweet and enjoyable one, with the distinct feeling that you’re making friends along the way. The Poppy Creek series is a true treasure!

#50Booksin52Weeks

Here we are! It’s December, the last month of #50Booksin52Weeks, and I’ve come to two conclusions:

1. I actually read way more than 50 books, and
2. This experiment had no effect whatsoever on the height of my TBR pile.

Still, I consider it a success. I probably read closer to 65-70 books, all told, though not all of them were fiction and a few of them weren’t all that good. But of all of the books I specifically put toward the experiment, there was only one I didn’t finish, and it wasn’t even because it wasn’t well-written – the style of the writing just didn’t appeal to me. I discovered a lot of great books and a lot of authors I’ll continue to read, since I plan to keep this going through 2021.

And now it’s December, which means it’s time to pull out all of the holiday books I’ve been saving until now. Read on for December’s list!

If you read any of these books, I’d love to hear what you think! Let me know at courtney@fivedirectionspress.com!

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Week 1: The Meaning in Mistletoe by Rachael Bloome

Week 2: Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

Week 3: Notting Hill in the Snow by Jules Wake

Week 4: Small Town Christmas by Olivia Miles

 

Monthly Round-Up: November

Happy end-of-November! This has been a strange year, to put it mildly, and though it’ll probably be harder this year than any other in recent memory to find something to be grateful for, I hope we can all come up with something.

I am thankful that we’ve reached month 11 of the COVID pandemic and none of my loved ones have been seriously impacted. My husband has relatives in a different part of the US who caught the virus, but got over it without lasting effects. My own family has been spared, a fact for which I’m so grateful – especially in the case of my 102-year-old grandmother, who lives in a nursing home where things almost got bad, and my father, who suffers from chronic bronchitis and asthma. I’m thankful that I’m still employed, and that my gig-working husband has been allowed to collect unemployment for the last 8+ months (and that our marriage has survived 8+ months of constant togetherness). I’m thankful for the doctors and nurses who work so hard and put their lives in danger every second of the day to help those who need it, and for the scientists who have done what everyone thought was impossible – creating the potential for us to put this all behind us sooner than anyone could have expected.

Finally, I’m thankful that we’ve been given the opportunity to remember that despite what we’ve seen over the last few years, human decency still exists. I hope that we can take this opportunity to remember that no matter our belief system, as human beings we’re much more alike than we are different. This might be better saved for next month and the official end of the year, but it seems like as good a time as any to say that I hope that 2021 is a year of healing – on all fronts.

Read on to see how I spent November!

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Reading

I’m about to get personal. Really personal.

Like a lot of people in modern society, I suffer from anxiety. It manifests in different ways, and I tend not to talk about it much – not only because it is a little more personal than I typically like to get, but because I’ve learned the hard way that talking about it with people who don’t understand it is typically an exercise in futility. In my experience, people who can’t imagine what it’s like to live with anxiety tend to get annoyed or angry when it comes up, which makes it harder to discuss even normal human worries because you start to fear being accused of worrying for nothing. But 2020 has been a rough year for all of us, and even more so for those of us with anxiety disorders. Rather than let it continue to control me and make these stressful times even worse, I ordered The Worry Cure. By the end of the first chapter, I was convinced the author had moved, unnoticed, into my head, lived there for a month, and then wrote down everything he saw. I can’t begin to explain how comforting it was to know that there are enough people like me out there that our experience could be written down with such pinpoint accuracy. And the exercises in the book have already helped me gain perspective and I hope that with continued practice, I can begin to approach everyday life with a less fearful mentality.

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Cooking

With colder weather comes soup, and what goes better with soup than bread? I do like making yeast bread – I love the kneading process, I love watching the dough rise, I love the smell that fills my house as it bakes. But sometimes you don’t want to do all that kneading or wait for all that rising, and you want bread to go with the soup you just decided to make. And sometimes you find beer someone left in your fridge after a summer cookout and because you’re not a beer drinker, and because you want to clear some room for incoming Thanksgiving leftovers, you decide to make beer bread. This recipe is touted as the #1 Beer Bread Recipe in the world, and while I can’t claim to have tried every single beer bread recipe in existence, I can say it’s the recipe I always turn to when I want beer bread. Follow the directions closely – make sure to sift – and try not to eat half the loaf in one sitting.

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Watching

Did you really have to ask?

 

 

 

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That’s all for November! How did you spend the month?

Book Cover Wednesday

When I’m not writing, I’m designing. And when I’m designing, it’s usually a book cover. I design covers for my own books (those I’ve written, those that are just kernels of ideas, and those I might  never actually write) and for the authors in Five Directions Press. I’ve also recently begun to design covers and formatting print interiors for independent authors of romance, women’s fiction, and historical fiction. You can find more information on my services by checking out The Magenta Quill.

I also love looking at book covers. And on the third Wednesday of every month, I’ll be using my blog to share a book cover I love. This month’s featured cover is “Ghosted” by Rose Walsh. I read this book in July and reviewed it in my newsletter, but a big part of the reason why I picked it up in the first place was because of the colorful, whimsical cover.

Enjoy!

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Are you a romance or women’s fiction author in need of cover design or print formatting? Check out The Magenta Quill!

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DISCLAIMER: The covers posted on Book Cover Wednesday are not my designs, but those of other talented cover designers. I claim no involvement in their creation nor ownership over them – I just like them!

Review: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Kate Morton is not a new author, but when I picked up this book, she was new to me. I was intrigued by the plotline, which seemed to be part Jane Eyre, part Rebecca, and the setting, of course – the story was split between London and a crumbling ancestral manor in Kent. As anyone who’s spent five minutes in my company, virtually or in person, will tell you, I love anything that can transport me to England. I’ve spent time in both London and Kent, and this story took me right back there.

The story revolves around Edie, a young woman working for a publisher in 1990s London. Edie maintains a loving but somewhat distant relationship with her parents, neither of whom seem to have gotten over the loss of Edie’s younger brother when he was just a toddler. She’s spent her life wondering if they only love her because as her parents it’s their obligation, and she knows very little about their lives before her. Then one day, as they’re preparing to sit down to their weekly family supper, a letter – dated five decades earlier – is delivered to Edie’s mother, sparking a reaction Edie has never seen. Her mother cries.

Shaken by the reaction and intrigued by the mystery of the letter, which hints at a history Edie’s mother lived and about which Edie had no idea, Edie uses her connections at the publishing house to trace the source of the letter to Milderhurst Castle, formerly owned by Raymond Blythe – writer of the tale that inspired Edie, as a child, to pursue a career in writing. Raymond Blythe is long dead, but the castle is now inhabited by his three elderly daughters: Percy, Saffy, and Juniper. Spinsters Percy and Saffy have devoted their lives to caring for their younger half-sister Juniper, whose sanity was irrevocably lost one night in 1941 when she realized her fiancé wasn’t coming for her after all. And as Edie gets to know the sisters, she learns that the crumbling walls of Milderhurst have been keeping secrets more sinister than those involving her mother’s childhood.

If you’re looking for a quick read, something that can be knocked out in an afternoon, this isn’t the book for you. It’s slow, sometimes frustratingly so, but it was always obvious that each carefully-crafted detail was necessary to the story. And though it echoes the classic Gothic novels of the 19th centuries, in some ways this book was several years ahead of its time – it employs the dual-timeline technique that has become so popular in recent years, switching between the World War II era and the 1990s. Multiple characters tell the tale from their own perspectives, ensuring that the reader never quite knows what’s reality and what’s perception. Lovers of traditional Gothic novels and those with the patience for an extensive cast of unreliable narrators and sprawling detail will enjoy The Distant Hours.

#50Booksin52Weeks – November

Halloween is over, and the winter holiday season is officially here. (Don’t believe me? Turn on the Hallmark Channel. I don’t think I’ve turned it off since October 23.) We’re also rapidly approaching the end of the year, and so far my goal to read four books a month has been going very well. Of course, it did nothing to affect the height of my TBR pile – book-buying is one of my proven methods of stress-busting, and I think we all know how much of that we’ve had to do this year – but I’ve read a lot of really good books and discovered some new-to-me authors I’ll be reading for a long time.

This month’s goal is to read a few books I’ve borrowed from Kindle Prime Reading, and to clear the way for a completely holiday-centric list next month. Keep reading to see what’s on my shelf for November!

If you read any of these books, I’d love to hear what you think! Let me know at courtney@fivedirectionspress.com!

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Week 1: The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Week 2: True to Me by Kay Bratt

Week 3: The Gold Letter by Lena Manta

Week 4: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

Book Cover Wednesday

When I’m not writing, I’m designing. And when I’m designing, it’s usually a book cover. I design covers for my own books (those I’ve written, those that are just kernels of ideas, and those I might  never actually write) and for the authors in Five Directions Press. I’ve also recently begun to design covers and formatting print interiors for independent authors of romance, women’s fiction, and historical fiction. You can find more information on my services by checking out The Magenta Quill.

I also love looking at book covers. And on the third Wednesday of every month, I’ll be using my blog to share a book cover I love. This month’s featured cover is “The Ingredients of You and Me” by Nina Bocci.

Enjoy!

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Are you a romance or women’s fiction author in need of cover design or print formatting? Check out The Magenta Quill!

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DISCLAIMER: The covers posted on Book Cover Wednesday are not my designs, but those of other talented cover designers. I claim no involvement in their creation nor ownership over them – I just like them!