These particular biscuits are very particular to the Maritime Provinces of Canada.  Those beautiful provinces anchored on the East Coast of my beautiful homeland, consisting of four provinces.



Newfoundland, an Island where my parents got married, also loving know as "The Rock."  Nova Scotia, where I say I am from.  A peninsula anchored by the Isthmus of Chebucto to mainland Canada. 

That means that this Chicken and Stuffing Casserole also figures high on our list of things we love.  And for a variety of reasons!  First of all there is the stuffing, an abundance of it covering the top, crisp on the outside and yet moist beneath.

Secondly there is its ease of preparation. This really could NOT be easier to make. Things are simply layered in  baking dish, covered and baked.

Prepared stuffing mix.  Tinned soup with milk. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Canned green beans.


Yes, canned cream of chicken soup.  I am not a canned soup snob.  So many are and I just don't get it.  I think it has great value in the kitchen and in your store cupboard.

I was brought up on it and it never killed me. Not once.  I am now 65 years old and I have not suffered any ill effects from eating canned cream of chicken soup, nor canned cream of mushroom soup for that matter.

Actually I have not suffered any ill effects from eating any canned soup.  It has its place and anyone who turns their nose up it is being a tiny bit pretentious in my opinion.


I don't meant to offend anyone by saying that. So my apologies if you are offended.  I feel that things like this have a very valid place in my kitchen at least and I always have a few tins in the cupboard.

They are great to use in casseroles or as quick and simple sauces. With a few additions, Bob's Your Uncle. If you are worried about salt and fat there are low sodium and low fat options readily available these days.


If you really don't want to use tinned soups, you can replace them with a simple homemade cream sauce.  For every cup of cream sauce you want, melt 1 TBS of butter in a saucepan.  Once it has melted whisk in 1 TBS of flour for every  cup of sauce you want to make.

Whisk it into the butter and let it cook for several minutes to cook out any flour flavour.  Then whisk in 1/2 cup (120ml) of chicken stock, and 1/2 cup (120ml) of milk for every cup of sauce you need.

Cook, whisking constantly over medium heat, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.  Leave to simmer on low for a few minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning as required, and its ready to use. Easy peasy.



Full disclosure here. My casserole got a little bit too dark. Somehow the temperature got turned up a bit too high (not naming any names) and so . . .  it still tasted delicious, it just was no as pretty as it should have been!

This is an old, old recipe.  Probably copied from a magazine years ago and meant to advertise soup and stuffing mix. I have adapted it through time to suit my own family and what they like.


I added a can of green beans.  Another casserole we really love is green bean casserole and I thought canned green beans would work wonderfully in it. I was right.  They do.

When we were children my mother could not get us to eat mushroom soup.  There was no way we were going to even touch the tips of our tongues to it. No way. No how.

I guess we were somewhat picky in that respect, and maybe even a bit spoiled.


Then when I was ten years old we took an exciting adventure almost all the way across the North American Continent.  My father's job took him from the wilds of Manitoba to the stony shores and  cosy inlets of Nova Scotia.

My parents took advantage of the trip to take us on a bit of a holiday. We had never been on one in our lives.  We went down from Manitoba into the Dakotas and across the Northern part of America to my mother's cousin Polly's home in Vermont. What an adventure that was for us!



We got to stay in a Howard Johnson Hotel and have chips/fries and hotdogs for lunch every day if we wanted to.  And we got to meet a part of our family that we had only ever heard about but had never spent time with.

My brother, sister and I loved being at Poly and Red's house and meeting our third cousins.  We got to experience the joys of extended family and we got to enjoy Green Bean Casserole for the first time in our lives and we love LOVED it!

Even if it was made with Cream of Mushroom Soup. To be honest, I doubt we were told until after we had eaten it and enjoyed it.



I never experienced homemade tomato soup until I was an adult and had made it myself.  And it is gorgeous I will admit.

I love LOVE homemade tomato soup, but if you are in a hurry and just want some comfort in a bowl, you cannot beat a bowl of Heinz Tomato soup in my opinion.



So I guess that was an awfully round about way of convincing you that canned soups have a real purpose to serve in the modern day kitchen.  They fulfil taste needs that nothing else quite can.  Hence, I am not a canned soup snob.

This casserole is not quite the same without it and neither is green bean casserole. Or tuna casserole for that matter. Or meatballs and gravy, or poor man's steak.  

Just one glutton's opinion.





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There are a few food things that come to mind when you say the word Canada. That is if you know Canadians at all. One is Poutine, that delicious dish of crisp chips and squeaky cheese curds, smothered in hot gravy.  Another is Maple Syrup.  I swear our veins run with maple syrup, not blood.
 
Peameal Bacon, lean, juicy and rolled in cornmeal. Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches. Quebec Pea Soup, made with whole yellow peas. Molasses cookies.  Beaver Tails.  Lobster Rolls from the Maritimes and their infamous fish chowder.  Nanaimo Bars, three layers of non-baked heaven,  and the Piece de la Resistance . . .  Butter Tarts.


 
It is impossible to be a Canadian and not love most if not all of those things.  And we do them very well. And there are others. Saskatoon Berry Pie.  Pierogi. Pouding Chomeur also comes to mind as do Bannock and Tortiere.

I think our Canadian flag should be marked into segments with each one representing one of these traditional and delicious dishes, with the maple leaf (on a bottle of maple syrup) holding court in the centre of the flag.



 We invented Tim Hortons!  Americans used to come up to Canada just for the Tim Hortons Coffee. The drive-throughs of Tim Horton's all across the country are jam packed every morning with Canadians in their cars wanting their double doubles on their way to work.

They do have Tim Hortons here in the UK now, but I have not been to it.  I have heard however that it is not as good as back home, and actually, I have heard that back home Tim Hortons is not as good as it used to be either.


Change is not always good.  They used to have a resident baker on the premises every night. He would work all night making cakes, donuts, etc. for the next day. Now I hear, they bring everything in from a central warehouse, frozen.  I fear it has lost the personal touch.

Butter Tarts are very similar to the Scottish Ecchlefechan tarts.  I strongly suspect this recipe was brought over to Canada with the Scottish settlers when they immigrated.

We had Ecchlefechan tarts when we were in Scotland on holiday a few years ago. I have to say that they were very similar 


So just what is a butter tart?  Let me see if I can find adequate words to describe this decadent, moreishly delicious Canadian treat that is impossible to resist.

Tarts made with flaky buttery pastry and filled with an ooey gooey brown sugar and maple filling, stogged full of toasted walnuts and sticky raisins.

You can find other kinds with chocolate chips and all sorts stuffed into them. But the original and the best is just four things.  Flaky pastry.  Rich and sweet maple filling. Toasted walnuts.  Sticky raisins.  That's it. Simple.

When I was a child the first thing my sister and I did when we got our allowance was to high-tail it to the Canex store and go halves on a package of ready made butter tarts.  They came two to a pack.

I don't think we would even wait until we got home to eat them. 

We would crack them open while we sat on the grass right at the top of the hill leading down to the Canex.  Every mouthful was ecstasy and we wanted the pleasure to last as long as we could make it last.

Those butter tarts had nothing on this recipe.  This recipe I am sharing with you today is the best recipe (in my opinion) for buttertarts ever invented.  I copied it many years ago into my Big Blue Binder.

The Big Blue Binder is a binder I have carried with me all over the world.  Anyone who has been reading me for a while knows that it is filled with my tried and true recipes, gleaned from years of travel. Recipes shared with me from family and friends.

When people share their recipes with you, you just know that they are good.  Nobody shares their worst. Its a fact. You can bank on it.


This recipe for Butter Tarts is the first recipe in my pies and pastry section. It is the best in my opinion.  I cannot tell you how many times I have baked these over the years.

It copied right there in black ink in my what-used to-be beautiful handwriting. (Key boarding has ruined that for me I have to say!) The page has been splotched on and is becoming tattered and yellow from age.

I thought it was about time I got it down here so it didn't get lost forever.  I can't tell you where it came from. I haven't bothered to note the source in this instance.


I had the habit of only noting sources when the recipe came from family or friends. Recipes copied  from books, magazines,  newspapers, etc. were not source-noted.

Who knew that one day we would be able to share these delicious things with people and readers from all over the world!  This was pre-computer days.

The only thing I can tell you with impunity is that it came from either a magazine or a book and I am thinking if it was a magazine it was Canadian Living.


I miss Canadian Living Magazine. I used to buy it every month. It was filled with everything Canadian, from fashion to decorating, crafts and of course cooking.

My other favourite magazine used to be Chatelaine.  I bought that religiously as well.  They were my textbooks on my journey towards becoming a good and solid cook.

The rest came from my mother and Home Ec at school.  Home Ec taught me basics that I have never forgotten. It was my favourite subject and not just the cooking term.  I loved the sewing and the houskeeping  terms as well.


I think perhaps I should have been a Home Economist.  That is a career I could have quite happily embraced. Never mind . . .  I did love being a stay at home mum, and I loved being a Chef in my later years.

This recipe has a gorgeous rich filling that is gooey and decadent.  It is flavoured highly with pure Maple syrup and brown sugar. Do NOT be tempted to use pancake syrup.  It might work and it might not, but I can tell you one thing, they will not be like or taste the same as a real Canadian Butter Tart.




Do not be tempted to overfill your pastry cases with the filling. It does expand in the oven and you will end up with pastry/tarts that are stuck to your tin and a sticky baked on mess to clean off.  Trust me.  Cement.

I use my butter and lard pastry. You can find that recipe here.  It is a lovely pastry. Nice and flaky. I use it for all my pies and tarts.  It always turns out.




This content (written and photography) is the sole property of  The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com 

 Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!



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