Chicken and Dumplings!

Last night, I made chicken and dumplings, and my housemates love it. I'm pretty pleased. Seriously, they say it was everything they had hoped for. I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light. I had to change some of the ingredients and improvise as I went. The following is my version.


Chicken and Dumplings

Serves 6

Soup Ingredients:
2 tsp olive oil
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 cups sliced carrots
1 1/2 cups sliced celery
1 cup diced onion
2 garlic cloves
1 Quart Chicken Stock (our was homemade, I'm guessing a quart? Might have been more. It doesn't really matter)
1 tbs ground sage
1 tsp dill
1 Tbs basil
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water

Dumpling Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbs chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 tbs baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1 large egg

Directions:

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the chicken and cook until brown on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pot (it's a good idea to drain off some of the fat at this point), and then add the carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, or until vegetables are fragrant. Add in the stock, scrapping the bottom of the pan to get all the cooked and delicious bits. Add in the salt and the herbs, then lower the heat and simmer the soup.

At this point, you should make the dumplings. Measure out the flour into a bowl, then add in the rosemary, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender. Stir in the buttermilk and egg. You should have something that looks like a wet, shaggy biscuit dough.

Back to the soup! So take the 1/4 flour and mix it with water. Stir the resulting grayish goo (it's not the most appetizing thing in the world) into the soup. Bring the heat back to medium and let it simmer for 5 minutes or so. It should thicken a bit. Now, the fun part. Reduce the heat to medium low, and scoop the dumpling dough into the soup, a tablespoon at a time. Mine were bigger because I'm lazy. Cover the pot, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Ladle into bowls and eat. Then make your roommates clean the kitchen.

This makes me happy.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

A few of my art history friends have posted this on Facebook, and it's great. If I teach the intro course again, this will definitely be the extra credit.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Truffles

I am in love with these. Actually, lust might be more accurate. They were born out of neccessity. A few days before Mardi Gras, my roommate came home from her job at the coffee shop carrying a 5 pound box of graham cracker crumbs.* The girl hates to waste food. She might be allergic to it. It's been hanging around the house ever since. I made a chocolate pie with a graham cracker crust, but still, the graham cracker crumbs endure.

And here we are, post Lombardi Gras, and still, the crumbs. Clearly, the answer is truffles. I adapted the recipe from here. I had to make some changes to make use of what we had in the house. It would be a good idea to temper the chocolate, otherwise it melts in your hand. But I'm lazy. So I didn't.

Peanut Butter Truffles

Ingredients:
3/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbs butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup powdered sugar
12 oz bag chocolate chips
1 tbs butter

Directions:

Stir together the graham cracker crumbs and the sugar. Heat the peanut butter in the microwave and pour into the sugar mix. Melt the butter and pour that in too. Stir till it's all mixed. It'll look like a thick, crumbly paste.

Melt the chocolate chips and the butter in a double boiler. Take chunks of the peanut butter and squeeze it into balls. The original recipe says you should get 36. I think that's silly, I only got 12. Dunk the balls in the chocolate, then set them on wax paper. Stick the whole shebang in the fridge and let it set.

Then you should eat them. Just try not to eat all of them in one sitting. I dare you!


*It's not that strange, a few days later she biked home carrying three king cakes while wearing sunglasses given to her by a motorcycle Elvis, singing Pink Floyd.

The Beginning

Hello! I finally caved and got a blog. I'm about 2 years late to this party, but I feel like it'll be ok. Having a blog means that you think people care about what you have to say. Assuming you have anything to say, and frankly, I never felt like my thoughts were interesting enough to share. But here's the thing: I read other people's blogs everyday. And they're fascinating!

So here's my blog's manifesto, if you will: I intend to post, on a regular basis, photos and stories about the stuff that I make. And I make a fair amount of it. I'll be covering my cooking and baking (with recipes!), my knitting, my sewing, and any other crafty thing that wanders through my life. So let's get started...

This year for Christmas, my boyfriend got me a sewing machine. A Janome TB 12 for those of you who care. I learned to sew on a machine years ago, in 7th grade. We all took whatever the PC version of home ec is called, and our class project was to sew a bag. But not just any bag mind you, a cat-shaped bag. That's right. Cat shaped. It was orange. My mom still has it in a closet somewhere. And that was the end of my sewing adventure.

Until I got the Threadbanger. Learning to sew a straight seam was a challenge. Actually, it still is, but I digress. I hemmed curtains, made ugly pillows out of fat quarters, and generally played around. The apron pictured above is my first finished item. At least, it's the first item I'm not ashamed to show people. The pattern is Kwik Sew 3547, view C. The rick rack defeated me. That stuff is evil. Despite all of that, I like it. It defeats the orange cat shaped bag. I shall continue to sew!