Chicken and Dumplings

Have you ever had chicken and dumplings?  I hadn't and wasn't sure if I would like it or not.  But I had all the ingredients on hand, and it sounded like a good meal for a cold day, so we gave it a try.


Delicious!  I learned that I LOVE chicken and dumplings!  This was easy, nourishing, creamy, warm and soooo yummy.  And I love that it is made from ingredients that I generally have on hand.  We all loved it!

This recipe is from Our Best Bites' cookbook.

• 6 cups chicken broth (1 1/2 boxes or 3 cans) OR (I didn't' have broth on hand) 6 c. water + 6 chicken bouillon cubes 
• 1 lb. cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (you could use 1/2 of a fauxtisserie chicken and it’s FABULOUS! You could also use leftover rotisserie chicken from the grocery store) 
• 1 c. sliced carrots 
• 2 ribs celery, chopped 
• 1 onion, minced 
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed 
• 1 bay leaf 
• 1 handful of chopped fresh parsley OR 1 Tbsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp. basil 
• 1 14-oz. can evaporated milk (fat free is fine) 
• 1 recipe of Bisquik dumplings (recipe is on the box) 
• 1 T. olive oil

If using uncooked chicken, cook your chicken.

Meanwhile, in a large pot, heat some olive oil over medium heat and add onions and garlic. Saute for a few minutes and then add chicken broth (OR water and buillion like I did), cooked chicken, bay leaf, and basil. Bring to a boil. Add carrots and celery and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook until carrots and celery are tender. While this is cooking, prepare the Bisquik dumpling batter, as instructed on the box.  When carrots and celery are almost done, add chopped parsley. Add evaporated milk. Increase heat to boiling add prepared Bisquik by small spoonfuls (they’ll really puff up while they’re cooking). Cook until dumplings are cooked through (they should appear moist but feel firm; this is after about 4-5 minutes).

One other thing–if you know you’ll have leftovers, only add dumplings to what you know you’ll eat immediately. The dumplings will soak up all the liquid in the soup when you store it as leftovers, so you’ll have overly-mushy dumplings and chicken with no broth if you don’t. The other thing you can do is add all of the dumplings or all of the noodles, and then store the dumplings or noodles separately from the rest of the soup. That’s easy to do with dumplings, not so much with noodles. Serves 5-6-ish…

Candied Carrots

I am getting tired of the same old ways I serve veggies at dinner.  We seem to alternate between green salad and frozen peas or corn.  The other night I was making stroganoff and muffins for a dinner, and had time to try something new for a vegetable side dish.  I found this recipe at allrecipes.com, and decided to give it a try.  It was a hit!  So easy, yummy, and my kids absolutely loved these.  We will definitely be making candied carrots often in the future!

"Sliced carrots are glazed in a buttery brown sugar sauce for a colorful, crowd-pleasing side dish."

Ingredients:

• 1 pound carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces (I used 1 lb. baby carrots - no cutting required!)
• 2 tablespoons butter, diced 
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar 
• 1 pinch salt 
• 1 pinch ground black pepper 

Directions:

Place carrots in a pot of salted water. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat to a high simmer and cook about 20 to 30 minutes. Do not cook the carrots to a mushy stage!  Drain the carrots, reduce the heat to its lowest possible setting and return the carrots to the pan. Stir in butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Cook for about 3 to 5 minutes, until sugar is bubbly. Serve hot!

Sunday Beef Stew

This is the beef stew recipe that I made with the corn bread I posted last week.  It is from Our Best Bites and is a truly delicious beef stew.  And like most stews, it's super easy!  Perfect for a cold winter's day.

•  1 1/2-2 lb. lean stew beef, cut into even smaller bite-sized pieces (just pull out a pair of kitchen shears and cut anything that looks like you’d need to use a knife and fork on) 
• 4-5 medium red potatoes, chopped 
• 4-5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped 
• 4 stalks celery, chopped 
• 2 cups roughly chopped onions, one large or 2 small 
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced 
• 2 12-oz. cans or 3 c. vegetable juice cocktail (like V8 or even Bloody Mary mix) 
• 1 10-oz. can condensed tomato soup 
• 10 oz. water (just use the can from the tomato soup to measure) 
• 1 tsp. basil 
• 2 beef bouillon cubes (or 2 tsp. beef base) 
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper 

Combine all ingredients in a large dutch oven or other oven save dish with a tight fitting lid. Cook for about 3 hours at 350 degrees. OR, place in a slow cooker and cook on low for 9-10 hours or high for 5-6.

Banana Crumb Muffins

I've been looking for a truly spectacular banana muffin.  I love to make muffins and freeze them for yummy and easy breakfasts on busy mornings.  This is the best banana muffin recipe I have tried!  The streusel topping make these divine.  :)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 3 bananas, mashed 
• 3/4 cup white sugar 
• 1 egg, lightly beaten 
• 1/3 cup butter, melted 
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1 tablespoon butter 

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 12 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.

2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Yummy Cornbread

We are having a snowstorm tonight, so I decided to make beef stew for dinner.  And then I found myself inexplicably craving some moist cornbread to go along with it.  I don't generally like cornbread, but I am outnumbered because the rest of my family LOVE it.  I ended up combining what I thought were the best things from two different recipes, and I was really happy with the results.  My little family ate them all up, no leftovers!  (Although Blake did have a considerable amount of crumbs under his chair.)  :)  We served it with Honey Butter, and it was truly scrumptious.  These would also make great muffins!

• 1-2 T. shortening
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/3 c. milk OR buttermilk
• 1/4 c. butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place 1-2 T. shortening into an 8x8 baking dish, and place the dish into the oven to get hot and let the shortening melt.

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and stir well.  (flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.)

In a smaller bowl, mix all the wet ingredients until well combined.  (egg, sour cream, milk, and melted butter.)

Fold egg mixture into flour mixture until JUST moistened.  The batter will be thick.

Remove the baking dish from the oven.  The shortening should be melted and thoroughly coating the bottom of the dish, and the dish should be nice and hot.  Pouring the batter in now will give the crust and edges that nice crispy fried texture.  Pour the batter into the dish and spread until flat.

Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, about 20 - 25 minutes.  Serve warm.

Flour Tortillas

I had to get a little more creative than usual cooking dinner last night.  We still hadn't had a chance to get to the store since our trip to Flagstaff and the pantry was pretty bare.  I decided Chicken Ranch tacos sounded delicious, but we didn't have any tortillas in the house.  So I decided to be brave and make my own.  Has everyone done this but me?  Because they were surprisingly easy!  And tasted sooooooooooooo much better than the stale store-bought kind.  Seriously, we many never go back!  If you haven't tried homemade tortillas, I suggest you do!  You're welcome.  :)

I used Our Best Bites recipe.  You can click that link for the full tutorial, if wanted.  The rest of this post is quoted directly from their website:
_________

I tried a couple of times to make my own tortillas, but I always failed–they were always too thick because the dough was so tough that I wasn’t physically strong enough to roll them to the size and thickness and shape that I actually wanted them. And then I met Mel–Fabulous Fajita Mel–and I learned from her how to make my own gen-u-ine flour tortillas. And it’s really not THAT much work. Plus, the results are SO worth any extra effort it might take! I promise you, once you make these, you will never return to store-bought tortillas in good conscience.

Flour Tortillas

• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 1 c. very hot water
• 1 tsp. Kosher salt
• 1/4 c. shortening

In a heavy-duty mixer, combine flour and salt. Add in shortening and mix until well combined (it will resemble coarse bread crumbs). (Jenn's note: I did it by hand.  Combined the flour and salt in a large bowl and then added the shortening in with a pastry blender or two knives.)  Add hot water. The water hotness is the key to these being easy to make–it needs to be hot enough to melt the shortening, but not SO hot that the dough turns into an ooey-gooey mess. Or a hot mess (literally), as Mia Michaels might say. I usually get relatively warm water from my tap and then heat it for 45-60 seconds in the microwave.

Anyway, after you add the water, the dough will start to come together. When it is fully combined, remove from mixer and divide into portions. Now…the recipe yield really depends on how many tortillas you want. If you want small tortillas (like for fajitas), then you’ll probably get around 10-12. If you want medium tortillas (burritos), then you’ll probably get 8 or so. For large tortillas (like for salad wraps), you’ll get around 6. Shape portions into round balls.

Preheat a non-stick or cast-iron skillet to medium heat. If necessary, spray your work surface with non-stick cooking spray; you may not need to because the dough isn’t particularly sticky, but it may be and you also don’t want to add any more flour to your dough. Press your palm against the surface of the dough ball, trying to maintain as much of a round shape as possible. Place rolling pin in middle of flattened dough ball and roll to desired thickness, shaping in a circle as you go.

Place raw tortilla on preheated skillet.  You’re going to be watching for bubbles. If you get little blistery bubbles, your skillet is too hot and you need to reduce the heat. You’re looking for big, fat, slow-bubbling bubbles.  When you start to see them, flip the tortilla over and cook for another 30-45 seconds or so.

This is where some personal taste comes in, but in my experience, dark marks on your tortillas (like you see on store-bought ones) usually lead to brittle tortillas when they cool down. Personally, I’m keeping my eye out for a kind of “greasy” look inside; I know that sounds gross, but that’s the best way I can think of to describe it. These ones are cooked enough to not taste raw, but they’re also very soft when they cool and they hold up to being wrapped, folded, twisted, and turned.

If you’re cooking these quickly, you can just stack them on top of each other and they’ll stay warm. You can also wrap them in damp paper towels and then wrap them in foil and keep them in a warm oven (170) until you’re ready to use them. But be sure and save one just for you–you have to eat it while it’s still hot and you can spread some butter on it or butter with cinnamon sugar or just eat it plain and BLESS the wonder that is real Mexican food!

Egg & Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole

We had a delicious Christmas morning breakfast this year, and the best part of it is that I didn't have to do anything Christmas morning other than bake the already made casseroles.  We served the Overnight Caramel French Toast with this egg casserole, and they were both scrumptious, easy, and complimented each other well.  This recipe is definitely a keeper that we will use all year round!  

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. package frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed 
• 1 pound pork sausage 
• 1/2 small onion, diced 
• 5 eggs 
• 1/4 cup milk 
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder 
• salt and ground black pepper to taste 
• 6 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart baking dish. Place the hash brown potatoes in the bottom of the baking dish.

2. Heat a skillet over medium heat and cook and stir the sausage and onion until the sausage is crumbly, evenly browned, and no longer pink; drain. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, milk, onion powder, salt, and pepper, and pour over the potatoes. Layer with half the Cheddar cheese, the sausage mixture, and the remaining Cheddar cheese. Cover with aluminum foil. If making the night before, refrigerate now until morning.

3. Bake, covered with the tinfoil, in the preheated oven for 45 minutes - 1 hour. Remove foil cover; return casserole to the oven and bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 10 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.