I am going to use the pre-baked puff pastry idea myself in the future. Here is a to-die-for recipe for chicken potpie from Ina Garten. When I made it, I just used a "red box" pie crust (I'm so NOT a baker). I baked the filling as a whole double-crusted pie. Even though I used a deep dish pie plate, I had filling leftover. I froze that. Can't remember if I've used it yet or not - I'll have to go look lol! Ingredients: 3 whole (6 split) chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on 3 tablespoons olive oil Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 5 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade 2 chicken bouillon cubes 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter 2 cups yellow onions, chopped (2 onions) 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 cup heavy cream 2 cups medium-diced carrots, blanched for 2 minutes 1 (10-ounce) package frozen peas (2 cups) 1 1/2 cups frozen small whole onions 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves For the pastry: 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 cup vegetable shortening 1/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced 1/2 to 2/3 cup ice water 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash Flaked sea salt and cracked black pepper Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the chicken breasts on a baking sheet and rub them with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or until cooked through. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin. Cut the chicken into large dice. You will have 4 to 6 cups of cubed chicken. In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until translucent. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring, until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the cubed chicken, carrots, peas, onions and parsley. Mix well. For the pastry, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the shortening and butter and mix quickly with your fingers until each piece is coated with flour. Pulse 10 times, or until the fat is the size of peas. With the motor running, add the ice water; process only enough to moisten the dough and have it just come together. Dump the dough out onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Divide the filling equally among 4 ovenproof bowls. Divide the dough into quarters and roll each piece into an 8-inch circle. Brush the outside edges of each bowl with the egg wash, then place the dough on top. Trim the circle to 1/2-inch larger than the top of the bowl. Crimp the dough to fold over the side, pressing it to make it stick. Brush the dough with egg wash and make 3 slits in the top. Sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot. seagrass

We are a mixed household. I use a cast off Mac and a cast off desktop PC. I have recipes on both computers, but the MAC lives in my kitchen. I have a Recipe Zaar membership and transfer recipes from GW to my private cookbook. The online availability is nice for any computer I use and won't get lost in a hard drive crash. I like being able to access recipes from my parents kitchen, too. Looking at the demo page on the Yummy Soup website there is an online library. Would that work for both computers or is it just MAC?

cawfeegirl: Yes, Cawfeegirl, you can have your cake and eat it too! You'll need either a miniDVI-to-HDMI adapter ($6.94), or a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter ($8.55), both available from monoprice.com, depending on which model Mac you have (older iMacs have miniDVI ports; new MacMinis have both; newest iMacs have DisplayPort only). With the proper adapter, you can connect a MacMini to any HDMI-capable display or TV. I actually misspoke in my earlier post--the preference would be to have a TV with two HDMI inputs and use one for your MacMini, and one for your CATV set-top box. Although a VGA input would also work (with the appropriate adapter), HDMI is capable of addressing higher resolutions than VGA, and is therefore preferred. When connected via HDMI, Macs typically automatically scale their display output to your TV's native aspect ratio and resolution (everything will look "right" without any hassle). dcwesley: Congrats! Many PC manufacturers are now making compact, all-in-one computers these days, some, even with touchscreens (which Apple does not yet offer). Many all-in-one, Windows-based PCs also offer significant savings over their pricier Apple counterparts.

I copy and paste recipes into Word documents and save them to an external portable drive. I have different folders set up: My Favorite Recipes, Holidays, Recipes to Try, etc., and within each of those folders categories set up. Categories such as Meat with subolders of Pork, Beef, Veal, Lamb; a category of Poultry with subfolders for Chicken, Duck, Cornish Hens, Duck, Turkey; and on and on. To me, this method makes it very easy to find a specific recipe I am looking for or to browse the recipes for an idea of something to cook.