This is hardly original, but last night I pulled some chili out of the freezer, put it into an 8×8 pan, grated about 4 ounces of cheese and sprinkled it over the chili, made a batch of batter for the best corn muffins in the world, poured that over top of it, and cooked the whole thing for about 30 minutes at 400, until the top was set and the chili was bubbling up around the edges of the cornbread. It was extremely tasty, and I finished it just in time to take some to class for dinner (my masters program teaches its classes in the evening. Next semester, thankfully, there will be no night classes, because I’m doing an independent study with an undergraduate class.) It reheated nicely a little while later when Jeff wanted dinner, and still later when I got in from class and wanted seconds.

My only complaint (and most of why I’m posting about it, since the Internet is my memory these days) is that I got the chili to cornbread ratio off; I forgot that the cornbread was going to rise like crazy, so instead of chili and cornbread, we had cornbread with some chili. It was still extremely tasty, but I’ll want to adjust that ratio next time. I also wonder how this would do in the slow cooker - if I made chili in the slow cooker, then made up the corn muffins and dropped them into the chili to cook for the last hour. I think the muffins would steam and come out very tender, but I’m not sure. Anyone else ever tried this?

… or, you don’t need cream of mushroom soup to make good chicken, gravy, and biscuits.

So, call this “chicken, gravy, and biscuits” or “chicken pie with a biscuit topping” or whatever you want to call it. This is dead easy. It’s easier if you have leftover chicken and potatoes already done up from something else.

1. Make up a batch of biscuit dough. I used a 3/4 batch and had enough biscuit to put a thin bottom crust on an 8×8 pan and mostly cover the top.
2. Make up a batch of gravy. 2 tablespoons butter or oil and 2 tablespoons of flour. Add a half cup of stock or broth, adding slowly and stirring constantly to avoid lumps, and then add milk until the whole thing is at whatever thickness you like your gravy. I didn’t measure, but it was probably a cup.
3. Smoosh out some biscuit dough on the bottom if you want a bottom crust, then put cooked chicken and potatoes (and whatever other veggies you’d like; obviously, this is easily customizable), salt and pepper to taste, then either just drop the biscuit dough on top, or, if you want it to look nice, roll it out and cut out biscuits with a glass. Shove the whole thing in the oven at 375 until the biscuits are brown and flaky, about 25 minutes.

The whole thing took 15 minutes of active prep - 10 for the biscuits and assembly, 5 for the gravy - and was really, really tasty. This would make great potluck food.

Meal: taco pie
Cooking time: about half an hour prep, 25 minutes baking
Cost per serving: about $2
Local ingredients: beef
Organic ingredients: flour
Leftovers: two lunch servings

Everyone has their own version of taco pie, Mexican lasagne, or whatever you want to call it, and our standard version is as simple as it gets: Cook up 1 pound of ground beef. Make up a batch of tortillas. Shred some cheese. Layer it all together, along with enchilada sauce (you can either take tomato sauce and heat it with a little water and taco seasoning, or you can cheat and use the jarred stuff. This is one of the few things we still cheat on.) Throw it all in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees, until the cheese is melted and starting to brown just a touch.

The variations on this are, of course, endless, starting with the kind of cheese you use (we used a mixture of Monterey jack and cheddar), adding beans (unfortunately, I don’t like beans), changing the type of protein (chicken, TVP, or tofu would work just as well), using corn tortillas if you have them on hand, adding vegetables… whatever suits you. This also makes ahead well, and reheats well.