Sunday dinner- chicken pie and scalloped corn & tomatoes

When I was growing up, my mom made Sunday dinner on a pretty regular basis. Fried chicken, roast beef, and country style steak were standard, along with veggies like okra, corn, butter beans and collards. Since Christmas, Andy & I have seemed to be getting busier and busier, so in an effort to reclaim some quality time together, I've decided to start having Sunday dinner at home, like my mom did. I found a couple of recipes in this month's Our State magazine to try out for this Sunday's dinner.

For the main dish, I made Lynn Coble's chicken pie.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Butter
1/3 Cup Flour
1 Tbsp Chicken Bouillion
Salt & pepper
3 cups milk
3 cups cooked chicken (I got a rotisserie chicken from HEB)
1 cup peas (I used Leseur canned peas)
1 cup carrots (I boiled frozen carrots)
1 cup potatoes (cooked) or rice (cooked) (I used rice)
Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust

I started by melting the butter in a cast-iron skillet.

I added the flour, bouillon and salt & pepper, and mixed them together. Then I added the milk and whisked until the mixture thickened. Then I added the chicken, veggies and rice. When it was all combined, the mixture looked like this:

For the pie crust, I should have just bought refrigerated dough, but I bought two pie crusts that were in aluminum pans. The crusts were not wide enough to lay across the large iron skillet, so I removed the dough from the aluminum pans and rolled it out so that it would stretch across the width of such a large skillet:

Then I baked at 375 for 45 minutes.

The other dish I prepared is called Scalloped Corn & Tomatoes. It's great for this time of year since fresh corn & tomatoes are starting to come into season. I used fresh corn, but I think that canned corn would be delicious, as well. This would be a perfect recipe for someone with a vibrant summer garden.

Ingredients (I halved this recipe)

6 cups of corn
2 cups bread crumbs
1 stick butter
salt & pepper
6 tomatoes, sliced

I started by shucking the corn. I bought nine ears, and could have used more. The size of the corn wasn't great, but it was deliciously sweet and crunchy.

I used a large kitchen knife to remove the kernels and collected them in a mixing bowl. I added a dash of salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar to the corn before moving on.

I cut the tomatoes into 1/4 inch slices.

I sprayed my favorite 8X8 casserole dish with PAM and then began layering. I added a layer of corn and then sprinkled the corn with bread crumbs. Then I dotted the bread crumbs with small squares of butter. Then I added a layer of tomatoes, then dotted the tomatoes with butter. I salted and peppered the tomato layer. Then I repeated the process one more time. I finished by sprinkling bread crumbs over the top layer of tomatoes.

I baked the corn and tomatoes along with the chicken pie, but if you're making it on your own- you'll want to bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Since I baked it with the chicken pie, it took a little longer. I just watched to see when the bread crumbs started looking golden brown on top.

The final products:

The only downside to a meal like this is that it's all pretty labor intensive. We went to the early service at church, and while Andy volunteered at Kidstuff, I came home and cooked! He got home just in time to find a sink full of dishes that looked like this:

But Andy's pretty speedy at dishes, so while the pie and corn baked, he cleaned while I set the table. We even had time to sit on the sofa and read for about ten minutes before the food was ready.

These are great dishes to make if you have about an hour and a half worth of time and they are great as leftovers. And the goal of having quality time together was definitely met. We enjoyed dinner and had plenty of time in the afternoon for a nap, coffee with a friend, a walk, more reading and a movie, which we watched while we ate leftovers from Saturday's steak frites dinner.

Yummy weekend. :)