Whatcha Cookin’ Wednesday

I’m baaaaack! Just in time for another Whatcha _______ Wednesday post. I had a lovely time on vacation, but I came back to a to-do list seventeen miles long—just how it always seems to be.

First on that to-do list? To share with you all this glorious, glorious deliciousness for Whatcha Cookin’ Wednesday. I’ve been modified (read: lax) Paleo for over two years, but we just did the switch to the whole family in January. And when I say the whole switch, I mean we detoxed the kids off of sugar for two weeks and everything. It actually wasn’t as bad as you would think, and my uber picky seven-year-old whose favorite foods were mac and cheese and PB&J is now eating vegetables. Without harassment. It’s a Paleo miracle. We are now a happily 90/10 Paleo family, which means we eat Paleo (or primal) 90% of the time and cut ourselves some slack that other 10%.

The thing that’s made it easy for my kids to do is that I search high and low for great food that doesn’t taste like they’re getting cheated. Who wants to eat plain brussels sprouts when you know the delicious, cheesy goodness of mac & cheese? Not me, I can tell you that.

That’s where Pinterest comes in. It’s a treasure trove of awesome food. While, yes, I’ve tried some doozies there, for the most part, the recipes are top notch.

My absolute favorite Paleo dish I make is this chicken pot pie. I promise you’ll love it and you (and your family/friends) will never have the foggiest idea it’s paleo. After making this no less than a dozen times (I’m not kidding…this is on our menu at least twice a month), I’ve changed up a few things. And you, my fine friends, are going to benefit from my trial and errors.

First, I make a double batch of the crust so I have one already prepped in the freezer and ready to go every other time. And, actually, now that I’ve snagged the Mac Daddy of all food processors, I think I might make a quadruple batch so I only have to go through that pain once a month.

Second, I only use 1/2 a pound of potatoes, and I use them all for the creamy sauce. I feel like I can be honest with you and you won’t judge me, so the first time I made it, I screwed up and pureed all the potatoes instead of leaving chunks. I didn’t notice (and I actually liked it better), so I continued on that way. I just decreased the amount so the “thickening” sauce was creamy instead of gloopy.

Third, I tend to just pour the coconut milk into the food processor until I get it the consistency I want. Of course, on your first time, it’s always good to follow the recipe (unlike I did as mentioned above), but don’t be afraid to add a bit more if it’s gummy. And for those of you who are turning your nose up at putting coconut milk into your potatoes and afraid everything will taste like coconut, to you I say: HAVE YOU NO TRUST IN ME?!

Lastly, I only bake mine for an hour, then let sit for 10 minutes. Mostly because the first time I made this, I didn’t plan appropriately for time, and everyone in my house was moaning over their roaring stomachs.

And I know I said lastly, but a couple more tips for you:

• Prior to rolling out your crust, lay your wax paper down and place your pan on top of it (upside down), tracing around the edges with a sharpie. Use that to guide how big to make your crust.
• Bake this sucker on a pan underneath it because parts of the crust will come off. Also, eat those. They’re delicious.
• The recipe creator recommends trimming excess off the sides and throwing it away. Um. No. That crust is like gold, so keep all that you can. (tip one will help with the reduced excess and tip two will catch everything that is and then you can shove it in your pie hole.)
• Lastly, if for some strange reason you are not a fan of potatoes, you could sub cauliflower. I’ve never tried that because I hate cauliflower and I love potatoes, but I’m willing to bet it’d be doable. And that your kids still wouldn’t notice.

That’s it! Make this and then come back and tell me how amazing everyone thought it was and how you tricked your kids into eating something totally healthy and 100% clean.

Also, I’m leaving you for another Friday post. I’m sorry! But I have a writing retreat this weekend, and I imagine I will be running around like a chicken with its head cut off Friday morning. But next week, I’ll be back with three posts!

*This post contains affiliate links. In plain English, that means if you purchase something from these links a small percentage of the sale comes back to me (at no cost to you!). It’s Amazon’s way of saying, hey, thanks for mentioning this product! Here’re some pennies. I promise I will never post about things I think suck. I’ll only ever recommend items I really, truly love!