Finally

It's felt like spring has in the last three weeks awakened from suspended animation.  Nothing was moving, including the knitting.  In the end, it took two episodes of Midsomer Murders, a James Bond movie and 5 episodes of Forever, but I finally finished the i-cord edging and wove in ends on the vest.

Getting to that point was a bit of a challenge- I eventually put the blocking mats on the ironing board to discourage the cats from sacking out on the vest.

The cats were forced to occupy the train layout in my husband's adjacent office to get a good view of the blocking process.

On the outdoor front...we finally got some warm weather and things are blooming.  But here is what we looked like on May 1:

No leaves.  Barely any buds.   The forsythia was blooming.  On May 1!  Usually the forsythia is gone by first week in April. Yet here it was:

The other plants just seem to be confused.   There were a few crocuses the second week in May.  A hyacinth and tulip bravely opened their petals.

The daffodils put up some green leaves, but not a single bud...they still haven't bloomed.  I'm wondering if they will bloom at all this year.   The day lilies and irises seem the least bothered, though I think they're also running a bit late.    In the wildflower bed (sometimes referred to as the Flower Cage Match Fight to the Death), the Siberian irises are making steady progress.  The day lilies are hanging in, though I think they don't really have enough sun.  The lupines, violets and lilies of the valley are duking it out in the center of the bed.   The lupines were slow starters, but they're reseeding well- I'm up to nine clumps, about half of which I think will bloom this year.

And I appear to have a volunteer columbine, which I wouldn't have spotted except for Valerie posting pictures of her columbine- I'm curious to see what it will look like if / when it blooms.

But now I need to pick out knitting for the weekend start getting the house ready for company.  My plan is to apply a broom to the drifts of cat hair.  The ones that meow and give me a dirty look will be the cats.

Genesis of a Pie

As I slog on through miles of i-cord, I've had to find other outlets for creativity- I'm very close to finishing, and yet if I give in to the temptation to cast on something new, it will take even longer to finish this vest.  

So, one evening last week, I took over the kitchen and perpetrated chicken pot pie.  I'm a big fan of pot pies in general, and I like them all- puff pastry, topped with potato, but there is a special place in my heart for pie crust.  I use the oil pastry recipe that has reigned in my family since I was young, and it lends itself very well to savory pies, because you can use olive oil for the oil and add some savory herbs to give it its own flavor.

But I was out of olive oil, so I made a plain crust and turned my attention to the filling.  First I sauteed some onions and garlic.  Because how can one possibly go wrong with sauteed onions and garlic?

Make mashed potatoes- this was the first time I'd done them in the microwave, and I will likely never do them on the stove top again, at least not for small quantities.  I cut up the potatoes, put them in a microwave container with a little water, covered the container with plastic wrap, poked a hole for the steam to escape and zapped them for 10 minutes.  Once they were soft, I used the container's cover to drain the water, then added a lump of butter and a splash of milk and mashed away.

I diced up some leftover grilled chicken.

The sauteed onions and garlic went with the chicken into a pan with a can of gravy.  I do make my own, but since I was using precooked chicken and didn't have any pan drippings, I went with canned. Also, since I wasn't starting with leftovers, except the chicken, there was a limit to how much cooking I wanted to do for the filling.    However canned gravy is pretty bland, so I also added a bunch of spices- thyme and rosemary, mainly, but also some celery seed and 'herbed poultry seasoning' that was lying around.

Then, I assembled the pie- potatos, covered with chicken in onion-garlic gravy and sprinkled with frozen peas (my usual default would be frozen peas and carrots, but I didn't happen to have any on hand).  Then, tuck it all under a top crust and stick it in the oven at 425°F for 50 plus minutes.

I don't need to tell you what happens after that, do I?  

One of the nice things about this is that it's pretty flexible- put in any meat/sauce combo, with compatible vegetables and starch and it'll taste good.  How about you?  Are savory pies something you go for?  Got a favorite pie recipe?