Mike makes a mean pot pie

Don't let the oysters fool you, I'll get to the pot pie in a minute! This weekend we made a trip home to Long Island for an annual Oyster Fest in Oyster Bay. We look forward to this all year, and I've been going since I was a kid. Long gone are the party atmosphere days, where you could walk around with a beer while you sampled all the lovely seafood. Now it's more family oriented, which is good since I have one, so the kids had a ball on the rides and got their hot dog and cotton candy fix.

Back to the Oysters. I love them raw, Mike waited on the line for 25 minutes to get a few plates, but of course it was worth it. I squirted them with fresh lemon, and a bit of cocktail sauce. They were cold, and so clean tasting, I was done in a few minutes. Next up were fried Oysters, this line was much shorter, I still inhaled them. The batter was crunchy, but light, and full of black pepper, you could smell it in the air as they cooked. Again all they needed was a bit of cocktail sauce. It's not even 10 o'clock and I could go for some right now.

Last week Mike made one of his fall specialties, Chicken Pot Pie. We had grilled chicken thighs the other night, and had a ton left over, so Mike chopped it up to make the pie. Sometimes he substitutes lobster for the chicken for a special dinner. This time instead of a biscuit crust, he used corn bread, which added a sweetness that worked with the salty inside.

Here is the recipe, he usually doubles it so we have one pie to eat, another for the freezer:

3 cups of cooked, shredded chicken

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups chopped carrot

2 cups diced potato

2 cups frozen baby peas

1 can of Nibblets Corn

3 cups of chicken stock - we use organic, or MSG free Swansons

1 cup of milk

butter, salt and pepper, flour, Bisquick or corn muffin mix

Heat oven to 375, grease a medium sized baking pan with butter

In a saute pan, melt 6 tablespoons (I know, it sounds like a lot) of butter and sautee the onion and carrot, after about 5 minutes stir in 6 tablespoons of flour, until it turns a light brown. Pour in stock, stir and bring to a boil, cook about 10 minutes until it thickens. Then add milk, and cook about 5 more minutes. Remove from heat, mix in chicken, peas corn and potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, pour into baking dish.

If you're doing a biscuit top, mix 2 1/4 cups of Bisquick and 2/3 cup milk, and pour over the top of the chicken mixture, and make little slits in the crust so steam escapes. For the corn bread topping, we used a box of Jiffy, followed the directions for corn bread and poured that over the top.

Bake 35 - 40 minutes until bubbly, and crust is browned. Let it sit about five minutes before chowing down.