Chicken and Leek Pie

So...I'm not even sure why I'm posting this as this dish didn't exactly turned out as planned, but I guess that's all part of it.  Am I right?

My recipe of the week this Wednesday was a Chicken and Leek Pie from The Fabulous Baker Brothers.  Sounds delicious and amazing, right?  Well the deliciousness and amazingness should come from following the recipe that was given to me, which I didn't necessarily do.  I generally go off and make up my own stuff in the middle of a recipe and it turns out pretty well, but there were definitely questionable moments with this endeavor.  That, and the fact that I've never made anything pie-like in my entire life without my mom's supervision, made for an interesting evening of cooking.

I guess let's start.  The Cast of Characters includes....2 leeks, an onion, a garlic clove, mushrooms, 6 chicken thighs, shortcrust pastry (which is different from puff pastry, I came to find out), 6 rashers (bacon), flour, heavy cream, white wine (even though I used sherry...more on that later), and a variety of herbs and spices of your choosing.  This recipe calls for lots of tarragon and thyme but I couldn't find tarragon so I improvised.  Or something.

Start by heating up a pan and frying up those rashers/bacon.

Then, chop the head off the top of your leeks...

Slice them down the middle....

And rinse the leeks out in cold water.  Evidently they can be dirty and grimy in there from the ground!  Who knew.

Then slice them up!

Melt a "good knob of butter" (according to those Baker Bros.) in a pan. 

And toss those leeks in the melted butter to cook down and soften.  It may look like a ton of leeks but they reduce waaayyyyy down.  Whew!

Slice up an onion.

And add that to the pan too.

And...you know me!  I'm a mushroom girl.  I add mushrooms even when the recipes don't call for it.  So in they go!  There's plenty of room for everybody, let's not be exclusive here.

Meanwhile, cut up those rashers into chunks.  Yum yum.  Oh, and add a chopped glove of garlic to your veggie mixture.  Forgot that.

Then have your husband perform surgery on the chicken thighs.  You know, I never really used to cook with dark meat but a year ago I started and now I LOVE chicken thighs.  In the States you can buy them boneless and skinless but not here!  That would be way too easy.  So Drew deskinned them (is that a word?) and attempted to get all the slippery meat off the bone, God love him.  Not an easy job but someone had to do it.

Cut up the chicken into small chunks and brown that up in a pan too.

After your leek/onion/shroom mixture has cooked down and gotten nice and brown, and you've added the desired herbs and stuff (I used thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and some garlic), add 2 heaping tablespoons of flour to the mixture.  Stir that up.

This is where the trouble started.  It then calls for a "good glass of white wine" or 150mL if you look at the other recipe I kinda piggybacked off of.  That's around 5-6 ounces.  I didn't have white wine and we only DRINK red wine so I didn't feel like buying more white.  So I thought I could use sherry!  Why not?  I'll tell you why not: sherry is disgusting when used in massive quantities and it overpowers everything and ruins the dish you've been working so hard at!  

So like I said...I dumped in a big ol' glass of sherry.  Not even thinking.  Awesome.

I stirred the sherry into the flour veggie mixture to thicken it up, but really..it turned into more of a gray, gummy paste.  Great!  Just f-ing great.

Then it tells me to dump the cooked chicken and rashers into my gummy pasty mixture.

Stir that up.  And then add 142mL of heavy cream OR some creme fraiche.  I opted for the heavy cream and I'm pretty sure this is what salvaged some of this dish.  Heavy cream makes everything better!  Except your waistline.  But I can't worry about that right now.

The cream helped the mixture be...well, creamy, and not so gummy and gross.  And it made it taste better too, DUH.  We tasted it and thought it needed some heat, so we started throwing in all kinds of heat-inducing spices.  None of which I'll tell you about because none of them probably go together and I'll be even more embarrassed about this dish than I already am.  

Here's where more trouble starts: the shortcrust pastry.  You're supposed to roll this stuff out and place it in a pie dish.  I don't have one of those so I basically used a meatloaf dish.  Hopefully it would be ok. Also, even though I'd be thawing it out for 2 days in the fridge, it was still partially frozen.  So it cracked as I rolled it out and put it in my rectangular dish, so this picture below is our version of a glued-together dough layer.  Shit.

What a joke.

Then...take your now hopefully-decent-but-still-tastes-a-lot-like-sherry mixture and pour that into the weird looking pastry dough.

Distribute it all in there, and realize that your dish is way too big/deep for the filling.  Panic. 

Get out a SMALLER pyrex dish and place the other sheet of shortcrust pastry in there (that was supposed to go on the top of the other one) and turn your filling into this other dish.  Continue panicking.

THEN, take the former bottom crust from the other dish that now has gooey filling residue all over it and dump that out, inverting it onto your other pie/casserole dish to become the top of the new one.  Realize that this isn't f-ing working and frantically try to make a top crust out of gooey scraps.  Chug wine.  

THIS, my friends, is how this delightful pie was supposed to look:

THIS, is how my piece-of-shit pie turned out:

What a big, horrible disaster.

Sigh.  There's nothing we could do to fix it so we shoved it in the 400 degreeish oven and let it bake for about 30 minutes and...voila!  Here is our disheveled-looking pie.

We were nervous, but it turned out...better than we thought.  Definitely had a strong hint of sherry, but the cream and other stuff I dumped in there certainly helped.  Serve with some mixed greens and you've got yourself a pretty ok meal!

This kitchen attempt was a pretty huge mess but it still tasted ok - and I have to remind myself that this is what trial and error cooking is all about.  It's not always gonna be good or perfect but it's a learning experience!  You can find the recipe I followed here and another one with slightly different ingredients here.  

I also need a name for my weekly cooking segments on my blog.  Anyone got any ideas??   Come on people, I need yall's help!

Happy Friday!

Church Shopping: Holy Trinity

Drew and I have been meaning to/wanting to find a church here in Dublin, but our internet searches proved to be limited in terms of anything non-Catholic or close to the city.  Meredith actually found two churches here in Dublin that were plants of her church in NY, Redeemer, so we decided to try one of those out this weekend, finally!

I know I generally get anxious before social functions, but Drew and I BOTH get major church anxiety.  I'm not sure why.  We really liked our church in Dallas, but when we belonged to a community group, we'd both get so ansy every week before we went.

Sunday was no different.  We took the train to Rathmines, a neighborhood south of us, to try out Holy Trinity Church.  It's housed in a beautiful old church in a quaint neighborhood, and shares the church with the more traditional parish that has been going to the early services there for years.  Our service started at noon, but you're supposed to get there early for "coffee, tea, biscuits, and fellowship!"  This immediately struck fear in our hearts.  Especially when we showed up as close to noon as possible and realized that no one was even attempting to make their way into the sanctuary.  A lovely woman named Suzy greeted and welcomed us and obviously knew we were new, and she pointed out where the coffee and tea were, and encouraged us to "take a look around, and get to know people!"  Kill me.  We got coffee and made a beeline for the corner of the fellowship room to hide and check out  a lot of information about the church.  Not long after, a young guy named James approached.  He was 19, but looked about 25, and said he was a struggling law student.  He asked us a lot of questions and was very friendly and welcoming, but something was slightly off.  No matter.  He was a nice guy and we definitely appreciated his inclusivity.  We met another guy named Richie, who was tall and cute (and perfect for several of my friends, actually) and very nice and intelligent and talked to us a lot about the history of the church, Tim Keller's influences, the mission of the church, etc.  We liked him.  We finally made our way into the sanctuary, some of the first, and watched the other young adults file in to some praise and worship music.  At the beginning, a woman who worked with a women's shelter stood up and talked about how we could all get involved.  (God?  Is that you?)  Then the music started.  And hilarity ensued.

During the first song, which I didn't know, Drew and I noticed/heard someone with an extremely loud voice shouting out the words to the song.  Completely out of tune.  This sort of thing bothers me immensely and it's generally all I can focus on.  I didn't want to turn around and find out who the culprit was so Drew and I just eyed each other and focused on singing.

Fast forward 15 minutes to the next song, and we hear the voice again.  Further away.  And it belongs to the dancing lunatic that is our pal JAMES!  He was off to the side of the alter, doing jumping jacks, clapping off-beat, head banging, and dancing erratically like a nut job.  I understand being moved by the Spirit but this was downright distracting.  And hilarious.  I noticed him first and looked at Drew out of the corner of my eye and watched him notice James too.  Then we both started giggling and tried to stifle the awkward church laugh where you're trying so hard not to laugh but you can't help it and it makes it worse.  Thank God the song ended.

Fast forward another 15 minutes, during "How Great Thou Art", and James has moved YET AGAIN to a pew right directly in front of us!  Now if any of you know this song, you know it's not a pumped-up song that's easy to dance and clap to.  It's a HYMN for crying out loud!  But don't you worry: James found a way!  He continued jumping up and down as high as he could and clapping every so often and banging his head and acting like a complete lunatic.  It was too much for us to handle.  I tried to focus on the words and attempted to look elsewhere but it was impossible.

After that, we heard a good message about some of the churches core foundations and principles and how/where church falls in the priorities of your life.  Evidently they all go to lunch afterwards together, and the "emcee" of the service invited all guests to hang around after with everyone to get to know the members.  Nope.  Not happening.  We briefly talked to Suzy on our way out, who graciously gave us a list of other cool churches in Dublin to try, God love her, and we ran into a friend we'd made at the Yelp Elite event who was super nice.  And instead of getting distracted anymore or having to talk to any other kooks, we headed directly for the exit with our eyes straight ahead and didn't look back.

On the way home, we talked about why trying new churches and talking to people in church was so hard for both of us, or why nut jobs like James can distract us from the whole service.  We still aren't sure.  Maybe we're too cynical.  What we've determined, after many long discussions yesterday, is that we're looking for a church that has people just like us.  Which may or may not be possible and may or may not be out there.  And may or may not be worth going to, actually.  We want to meet people who aren't crazy kooky Christians but who are low key and chill and love Jesus but also like to have a good time and be real with each other.  And as God as my witness, we'll find one.  One day.  Maybe.  I hope.  For now...the search continues!  Stay tuned.

Oktoberfest and Phoenix Park

This past weekend was much more fun than my actual week!  I took Drew back to Oktoberfest on Friday because I wanted some more hot mulled wine and some bratwursts.  I didn't even know Dublin had any sort of Oktoberfest until my function with the American Women's group on Thursday, but it was fun and I know we'll be going back several times in the next three weeks!

We then met some friends in Ranelagh and drank too my wine but had a good time nonetheless.

Gorgeous night on the River Liffey!

Mmmm an entire grill full of sausages.  Yum.

Bratwursts, sauerkraut, potatoes.  Delish.

More glorious river pics.

And...still more.

Fun times!

On Saturday, we slept in late and headed over to our local favorite, Queen of Tarts, AGAIN, for brunch.  I can't resist it!  It's too good and too cute!  I'll take you all there when you come visit.

Roast Chicken, Broccoli, Courgette, Red Pepper, and Coriander Tart!  Doesn't get much better than this.

It was a fabulous, cool day and we wanted to do something "touristy" and fun, since we still haven't seen all of the local hot spots yet.  Whoops.  We headed over to Phoenix Park!  Phoenix Park is a humongous park in northwest Dublin, and it's actually "one of the largest walled city parks in Europe", according to Wikipedia.  "It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth century has been home to a herd of wild Fallow deer."  It also has huge monuments, enormous grassy fields, a Papal cross, the President's (of Ireland) home, a cool zoo, a visitor center, a fort, some gardens, the home of the US Ambassador, etc. - the list goes on and on.  We figured the best way to see the entire park would be to rent a bike and cruise around, even though we swore we'd never get on a bicycle again.  Ok, maybe that was just me.  But we got back in the saddle and it wasn't half bad.

This is the Wellington Monument - it's 203 feet tall, and it's the tallest obelisk in Europe.   It commemorates the victories of Arthur Wellesley.  Whoever that guy is.

This is the giant Papal cross that was built in 1979 for the Pope John Paul II's visit to Dublin.  Over a million people attended the open air mass!  Coooooool.

On the other side of the cross is a HUGE grassy field, filled with Fallow deer!  You can walk right up to them!  There seemed to be one deer in particular that kept everyone at a safe distance and was doing his duty as guardian but that's to be expected.  It was awesome!

Us, with our bikes, and the deer, in the fields.

Cue the heavenly chorus.

The home of the US Ambassador.  Now how he got hooked up with this palatial residence is beyond me.

It was a perfect day.  We then went shopping and then headed to our friend's Lauren and Bryan for dinner and got to play with their cutie doggy.  Sigh.  I miss mine.  ANYWAY, on Sunday we tried a new church (more on that later), did more grocery shopping, lounged around, and headed to a popular pub in Dublin called The Woolshed with Tracy...that shows NFL games!!  Drew was in heaven.  We saw an American girl in a Romo jersey sitting by herself so we invited her over to sit with us.  Yay!

Cutie with his football games.

It was a fun, low key weekend!  Woohoo.  More reports on church shopping to come.  Now I'm going to watch the Emmys on our Slingbox and research Paris!  Bye for now!

Weekly Review

I'm sad to report that I never did find Mischa, and my schedule just didn't fit with the times of the play that were offered.  And now she's in Cork, onto much bigger and better smaller and sadder things.  Sigh.  I guess I'll never know what could have been.

Last week was a much slower week than usual, which isn't usually a good thing.  Slow weeks give one too much time to think about what they're doing with their lives.  Or what they're not doing, as it were.  Even though it was slower, I still managed to get a few things done:

• I got a library card with the Dublin Public Library!  Now I can check out books and DVDs and use their Reading Room if I so choose.  Woohooo.  I love free books.
• I decided to forego French classes for the semester and instead focus on a language I could use upon my return to the States: SPANISH!  I don't know why I didn't think of it before.  I'll be doing a conversation class starting on Monday, October 1, through February.  Hopefully it's a good one.  And I can always do French next semester or next year or whatever.  I got nothin but time.
• I went shopping and bought a shirt!  Awesome!
• I did a lot of laundry and ironing.  Cool.
• I filled out a volunteer application with a popular volunteer agency here in the city.  Now I just have to go through and pick where I want to volunteer!  I started looking at things I could do with animals but then I freaked out and realized that Drew would come home one day and I'd have adopted 5 dogs and that would be a problem.  (For him, anyway.)  So I'm going to keep looking.  Stay tuned.
• I watched The Shawshank Redemption on TV and cried.  Man, that movie is awesome but it's super heavy.  Especially when you're sitting at home alone and it's raining outside.  I won't be watching those types of movies for awhile.
• I went to a Philanthropy meeting for the American Women's Club.  Yes, you heard that right.  I, Lauren Solomon, volunteered to help out and get involved.  Who am I?  And after that, I went to Dublin's Oktoberfest with some of my pals I've made there!  Fun!
• Drew's parent's friends were in Ireland this week and they took us to a delicious dinner!  It was so fun to see them and really nice to have some familiar faces from home.

Despite this list of things, there was also a lot of couch-sitting, computer-starting, and sleeping in.  Whoops.  This week will be more productive, I can already tell!  I'm still applying for jobs, but it's slow going and I figured I need to start finding things to do instead of waiting on a job that may or may not happen.  So here we go.

Mischa

High school friends, college friends; fans of the OC-

I have news of a most alarming and disturbing nature.

After enrolling myself in some Spanish classes for the fall semester and rewarding myself with a lovely new top at H&M, I was strolling home through a very touristy part of Dublin.  And I saw this:

Mischa.  My Mischa.  IN THE CITY I LIVE IN!  Staying here!  And being reduced to THIS!  Touring around small theaters in Ireland doing some bullshit play with some bullshit people, trying to stay significant but failing miserably!!

Is anyone else as disturbed by this as I am??

It seemed like only yesterday she was haunting all of us as Marissa Cooper, doing some of the best/worst (but we didn't care) acting of her career.  And it was only a mere 7 YEARS AGO (wow, that's longer than I thought) that me, Steph, Nell, and Mere had the chance to MEET her in her prime, while living the dream in Siena, Italy!

(I'd also like to apologize for posting this picture to everyone in it, aside from Mischa but including myself, because we've all lost between 10 and 30 pounds since then.  Whoops.   What did you want from us??  Our mothers only fed us fried food in Spain and we felt bad not eating it!!)

I digress.  Mischa.  This picture was when she was in her prime and now she's here, touring around Ireland, and hardly anyone knows or cares what she's doing in the world.  Except ME.

She's only here until Saturday, September 22, but I'm determined to see this play even though I'm looking at a relatively busy schedule over the next few days.  I'm also determined to find out where she's staying - and if you think I haven't already Googled the places I'm most likely to find her, you're crazy.

I know each of you, high school/college friends and fans, must feel the same way as I do.  If you don't, I dare you to go put in Disc 6 of Season 2 of the O.C. and tell me her face doesn't give you chills!

That's all.

Love,
A devoted Mischa fan