lighter chicken potpie and cauliflower gratin

Here's a comfort food duo if there was ever one, Lighter Chicken Potpie and Cauliflower Gratin.

I made this gratin back when it was first published for a Thanksgiving dinner I held for both sets of my grandparents 3 years ago. I remember everyone enjoyed it except my grandfather who thought it was too jazzed up for his taste. I believe there is no tastier way to eat cauliflower than with this gruyere cheese sauce. It's fantastic and a fairly easy dish to make.

For years now I've been wanting to make this Chicken Potpie but the October 2007 issue had too many other delicious recipes that took precedence over this one. Well, luckily it made it into Everyday Food Fresh Flavour Fast. This chicken potpie was fairly easy but time consuming. From start to finish your looking at over an hour. I'm also afraid of attempting to make this ahead because the phyllo dough crust would certainly dry out if made a day in advance. Of course, you could always prep up until the crust step and save that till right before baking. The phyllo seems to blend into the stew once it's served, which might not be to the liking of someone who loves the pastry crust element to potpies.

 

Although each dish is fairly straight forward, what wasn't so simple is coordinating these two baked dishes simultaneously. Once one hit the oven I had to quickly start on the next. The best part of making these two recipes was that they lasted 2 nights so the big payoff was having one night off.  But this combo is definitely well suited for a two person prep but easiest if you choose just one per night.