Barbequed Chicken Pot Pie

In unpacking my cookbooks, I realized that I had never used my Cooking Light cookbook. My recent weight gain has made that a bit more of an imperative.

We often have our friends, BJ and Chris, over on Mondays so we can watch Heroes. So, needing to feed folks gave me the nudge to grab the book and look through it on the train. One surprise: a huge proportion of the recipes are for beef and starch. There are very few recipes for anything centered around green vegetables. That strikes me as very strange. Despite that, this recipe jumped out as kinda retro, but tasty. There's nothing "pie-like" about it, though. No crust, just bread across the top. Anyway.

It's all about the learning these days, but I really didn't expect to get anything out of this effort in that regard. But I was still preparing when they came over and started talking through the recipe with Chris (a great cook in his own right). I mention I'm a little apprehensive about the 12 oz of chili sauce. That's two full bottles of hot sauce, which seems dangerous. I was figuring I'd do it to taste, but still…

Whoops. Thank God he was there. Chili sauce is NOT pepper (or "hot") sauce. Chili sauce is actually a ketchup-like condiment that was, he says, a staple of crappy 50's recipes. I had no clue at all. I worked in a grocery store stocking shelves for 3 years in high school and I can't remember ever hearing of this. He ran over to the Jewel for me and all was good. BTW - it tastes a little like cocktail sauce, like for shrimp cocktail.

The result was pretty damned good. I used the bread stick option, since Jewel didn't have the cornbread. I think it would taste and cut better. I also upped the cumin a bit (several shakes over the pan) because I just love the stuff. and added about 1/4 tsp of salt. Channing was very apprehensive when he saw the onions sautéing and was prepared to go for the frozen soy patties if need be. But he loved it, surprising himself.

I served it with broccoli steamed in champagne (really - long story), tossed with champagne and olive oil and a salad of mixed field greens with Brianna's Chipotle Chedder dressing.