Chick'n & Dumpl'ns

Earlier this week, I made chicken & dumplings. This is a dish I have not made since I was a teenager. I used to cook a lot of meals even back then. I was taught to make this dish with Bisquick, but I have not used that since I first went on my organic/whole food/non-preservative kick about 7 years ago. Being pregnant with your first child will do that to you. If you've read this blog, you know I get my free-range organic chicken in whole form, no little packaged parts in plastic wrap with trays for us. No sirriee, Bob, I get mine on the bone in whole form. I either have to cut it up or cook it whole and use the meat in other recipes. So, I'm always on the lookout for recipes using cooked chicken.

I usually start my recipe search these days with recipezaar.com. And this was no different. But, I always, and I do mean always change things up, or add stuff or take out something I don't like. For instance, I despise the flavor of cilantro. So, any recipe calling for that has either parsley substituted, or I just leave it out all together. So, the recipe is using a couple different versions for ideas, and then making them my own. I find I usually like it better that way in the end.

The broth on this looks gray in this picture. A couple of the recipes I found for this particular dish had yellow food coloring in the ingredient list, which I won't use (please see above for reason why). So, the broth is gray in tone. That's okay with me, that's it's natural state. And none of the boys in the house seemed to mind since it was gobbled right up. I'm not sure how many times Music Man said, "Oh, this is awesome", but I will surely be making it again sooner then later. On the next cool evening, give it a go, it's pretty yummy if I do say so myself. I've even given it my own annoyingly cutsey name.

Chick'n & Dumpl'ns

Cooked meat from one chicken (I used 1/2 breast and 2 thighs), shredded

2-3 ribs of celery, sliced

4 large carrots, peeled if not organic, and sliced

1 med onion, diced

32 oz water or chicken broth

1 tablespoon chicken boullion granuals (I use Better then Boullion paste, organic)

2 tablespoons dried parsley or 1/4 c fresh chopped

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon good poultry season (should contain lots of rosemary, sage and thyme, or use them fresh from your garden if you have them)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper (warning, I LOVE black pepper, so adjust this to your taste if you don't like it as much as I do)

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup water

Dumplings:

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

4 tablespoons oil

1. Saute celery, carrot, onion and garlic in deep pot, I used my cast iron dutch oven, worked great. Saute until tender, but not mushy, I like a little crunch left in them.

2. Add broth and boullion, bring to a boil. Add chicken and all remaining ingredients, bring to a gentle boil. Cook for about 5-7 minutes, or while you're making dumplings.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and water. Add to chicken mixture. Stir gently until incorporated into broth well. Reduce heat to medium-low.

4. In a medium mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients for dumplings. In separate bowl (or use your pyrex liquid measuring cup like I do), combine milk and oil. Add wet ingredients and stir just until combined. You can also add some spices to the dumpling mixture. I chose a bit more pepper and a couple shakes of poultry seasoning, but you can put in whatever you'd like.

5. Using a large tablespoon, drop dumpling mixture by spoonfuls into the chicken mixture. Dumplings will cover top of chicken mixture. Reduce heat to low, put cover on pot (my dutch oven worked great for this!) and let cook for about 15-20 minutes. The dumplings will steam in the pot, making them light and fluffy in the middle and a little gummy on the outside...so yummy!

At any point during this recipe, you may find you like more broth in your's so add more of that, or less chicken, but more veggies, or maybe you'd like to add rice to the chicken mixture. That's fine, you have my permission to make this your own, too. That's the beauty of being the cook, you can customize it to your own tastes. Go ahead, get creative. But whatever you do, just cook.

Wishing you groans of contentment from your family, too, ~Peacemom

Our own cooking show

Good Morn to you,
Just wanted to post a recipe for some yummy pumpkin bread that Little Red and I made the other day. He's really becoming quite adept with the mixer and is loving not fighting over who gets to mix the wet or dry ingredients. Since both boys love to help cook, and both love to do the wet ingredients, we have to switch off who does what each time we cook together. Now, Little Red gets to do wet AND dry and life is good in his little world. This having big bro gone to school for 4 hours each day is not all bad after all.

He's been having some fun with me during this time. I've purchased a few workbooks and we do our "school work" for 1/2 hour each day and we have set up a bit of a routine already. Once we wave our final goodbye to Maestro each day, we usually hop in the car if we need to go somewhere and head out first. This gives Little Red something to look forward to as he's always ready for an adventure. And let me tell you now, anyone who doesn't have at least two children wouldn't know this...it's absolute heaven shopping with just one of the boys at a time. Instead of dancing around, singing, knocking things off shelves, chattering incessantly, the list goes on, Little Red interacts with me, is well behaved, asks me questions, isn't hopping around like an ant with his butt on fire, it's all good.

After errands are completed, we usually come home, have that 1/2 hour of school work, then it's snack time. After snack time, we usually will make something together, some days it's cooking, some days arts and crafts, whatever the mood strikes me that day. Then, here's mommy's one big guilty pleasure that I've not been able to indulge since they stopped napping years ago...I turn on...shhhhh....don't tell anyone else, okay?....the Food Network....and watch a cooking show! A whole half hour of cooking, and no one jabbers through the whole thing, I can actually hear it AND get to increase my brain power instead of just listening to (let's face it, can't watch it) Curious George for the 453rd time. Oh, I love it! And, Little Red even likes it too. He says things like "YUMMY, that looks good" and "Can we make that, Mommy", oh it's music to my ears. I so rarely get to watch any TV that is adult TV and to be honest, most of the time, I don't care. I prefer to read at night once I crawl wearily into bed, so it works out just fine most of the time. But, I do miss the days when Music Man and I would snuggle up on the couch with some buffalo wings and the drink of choice and camp out for whole afternoons in the fall and winter and watch the Sox or Pats and enjoy a peaceful afternoon together. Though I'm not a football fan at all, I am a Music Man fan, and snuggling up on the couch with him didn't need an excuse! Time alone? We NEVER get that now, and I do mean NEVER. You parents know what I'm talking about, I know you do. I guess as they get older perhaps this will change, but I'm not holding my breath. I think life as we knew it is gone for good. But, when I look at my wonderful little men, I don't mind so much, they are more inviting then a Sox game most days!!

Now that the cooler temps are rolling in, I hope you'll try this delicious bread recipe. The boys like it a lot and have been eating muffins for breakfast for 2 days now.

Little Red's Pumpkin Bread

1 cup canola oil

2 1/2 cups sugar (I didn't say this was high nutrition this time around, did I?)

4 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup water

1 15 oz can pumpkin

1 cup dried cranberries, raisins, or both

Grease bottom and 1/2 in up sides of three 8x4" loaf pans (or one 9x5" and 12 muffin cups), set aside. In an extra large mixing bowl beat sugar and oil with electric mixer on medium speed. Add eggs and beat well; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl combine flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add dry mixture and water alternately to sugar mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
Beat in pumpkin. Stir in cranberries and/or raisins.
Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake in a 350 degree oven 55-60 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pans, cool completely on racks. Yum mo!!