Chicken and Dumplings, Birdeye

I met Aricka Harris Finger up at Fayetteville for the new Kappa
House dedication and we had a great time catching up.  Pictured
are Aricka, me,  Sharon Brawner Tucker, Corrie Tucker and
Diane Britton

I had to take a snap shot of the grease boards Chloe organizes.
This is one of the characters in The Warrior's series...books
about feral cats (unspayed and neutered that Chloe enjoys
pointing out)

I was cleaning out the beds to get ready for fall planting
and we still have a lot of peppers 

I got this one of Essie Mae (that Jackie and Chloe are forcing
me to keep) and Dr. Calico...they really are hilarious together

I had to add a second compost pile so my oldest one will
be ready in the spring to use...

Chloe took this, of course

Here's Chloe's horse Sonyador, she's about 7 now and is
rideable, a green rideable horse.  We need to get over there
and keep riding her.  She's a good listener but is spooky.

An older photo but we rode bikes some this fall....it's always
fun to do a group ride!

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013

Whew is all I can say.  This fall has been super duper busy!  I'm still doing a lot of meal planning to keep us eating out of the garden.  I am adding photos of the garden when I planted kale, spinach and greens.  When I think about back to school now, I'm usually packing up from the kids triathlon and getting things ready for the kids marathon which starts the first week of school and now that it's after the marathon, I can focus on sharing recipes and restaurants we've been to.  I'm excited that we have reservations at Itta Beana before the Justin Timberlake concert next week.  I cannot wait to see him at the FedEx Forum and to blog the restaurant.  I'm fired up.

Chloe's knee deep in 7th grade with AP Math and AP English so there's no shortage of projects and homework.  She's got two low B's in AP English and Science that we hope we can pull up by the end of the semester (and here's a prayer for a healthy fall and winter).  We'll see.  There is no shortage of work.  I wonder about her classmates that add cheerleading, basketball and other things to their agenda.  Sometimes I feel we're treading water, barely keeping our heads above water.

Anyway, Chloe said she wanted to have Martin's Chicken and Dumplings the other night.  I have no idea when she has ever had that over at their house nor do I have that recipe.  I found this one off Allrecipes.com one of my favorite websites to find things.  Here goes with my changes, of course.  I always improvise and substitute because of where we live.  You know, the COUNTRY!

































































































Chicken and Dumplings II from Allrecipes.com
1 (4 pound) whole chicken

• 3 cups water
• 3 cubes chicken bouillon
• 1 pinch poultry seasoning
• 1 pinch dried thyme
• 1 dash garlic powder
• 1 pinch dried sage
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups chopped celery

• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 potatoes, cubed
• 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 (10.75 ounce) cancondensed chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups buttermilk baking mix
• 1/8 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup milk

1. In a large pot over medium high heat, combine the chicken, water, bouillon, poultry seasoning, thyme, garlic powder, sage and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and allow to simmer. Add the onion, celery, carrots, potatoes, green bell pepper and tomatoes, cover pot and allow to simmer for one hour, or until vegetables are tender and chicken is done.  I totally skipped doing a whole bird, I used 4 boneless, skinless breast and deleted poultry seasoning and I SHOULD have omitted the salt because the bouillon has so much salt already in it.  I didn't have carrots and I deleted the tomatoes, just cause I thought it was a dumb ingredient.  Only cooked it for about 20 minutes, it was cooked perfectly.
2. In a separate small bowl, combine the flour, buttermilk baking mix, parsley, ground black pepper and milk. Mix together well and form into little balls. Drop these balls into the simmering soup. Simmer for 5 more minutes. I used plain flour for the baking mix and didn't have parsley so I used dill from the garden instead and it worked perfectly.
3. Remove chicken, debone, take off skin, chop the chicken meat and return to pot. Heat through and serve.  There wasn't really a place to add the can of broth so I deleted it too.

This was really so easy and tasty, I was totally bummed out that there were ZERO leftovers!  Delicious and EASY!!!

CRAZY Blogger has changed their widgets, this page is nutty!!  Come on Google, let's get 'er fixed!