Into the Woods

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The Quorn chicken nuggets make a very fine chicken pot pie. I previously wrote about Quorn here, and Scottish meat pies here.

I am acquiring the opinion that crusts for pot pies and meat pies don’t need to be flaky, and that lower-fat hot-water crusts work just fine. The 4-inch non-stick spring-form pans work great. The pies come out of the pan free standing and intact.

Seasoning for the chicken pot pie needs a good bit of celery, some peas, and maybe a bit of carrot. I used a white gravy made with olive oil.

I bought the sweet potato this very morning from a local farmer. In fact, I bought five pounds of them. He was selling potatoes at a local fall festival. The Brunswick stew was free. Consequently they made the biggest pot of stew I have ever seen. I used the word “pot,” but “cauldron” would be equally valid. I also wrote recently about what archeology tells us about the prehistoric Celts of the British Isles. We know that cauldrons were a status item, and we know that cauldrons were used for feasts. I strongly suspect that the local tradition of serving chicken stew and Brunswick stew to one’s neighbors at harvest festivals is a very old tradition. That tradition is still very much alive here.

The Democrats’ table at the local harvest festival