Chicken and Dumplings

Jenna had a meeting to run off to for her job at the newspaper, so I get the honors of blogging this time.  She watched Harlee while I had two clients and she reported he pretty much slept the whole time, allowing her to keep working on her knitting.  She's getting really good at it too!  Wish Harlee would sleep that much for me when I need to get stuff done... haha :-)  It's okay - Harlee is an adorable little bundle of fun and a whopping six months old as of Monday, and I'm loving every minute of it!  He just figured out how to sit unsupported and life is a lot easier on me now!

Taken by Be Lovely Photography

Look out, he'll be starting solids just around the corner, and then cooking is going to really get fun!  Not that it isn't already, though.  Tonight we made chicken and dumplings - perfect for this cold weather and it was super quick and easy which was great for Jenna to get to her meeting on time.  We were going to make the dumplings out of prepackaged biscuit dough to save on time, but luckily we found a simple homemade dumpling recipe instead.  Quality should not be sacrificed for convenience!

Here's the recipe:

Dumplings (we made these while the chicken was boiling for the soup)
     (from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dumplings/detail.aspx)

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp parsley (optional)
1 tablespoon margarine
1/2 cup milk
 
Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and parsley in medium size bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk to make a soft dough.
Drop by spoonfuls into boiling stew. Cover and simmer 15 minutes without lifting lid. Serve. 

Chicken and Dumplings

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can chicken broth
2 cups water
2 cups sliced carrots
2 cups chopped celery
Small white onion, chopped
2 cans condensed cream of celery soup
Salt & Pepper to taste


Combine chicken with broth and water, boil until chicken is no longer pink in the middle, about 15-20 minutes.
Drain the liquid, reserving 3 cups
Remove the chicken and shred.  Return to remainder of liquid in the pot.
Reduce to medium heat, add cans of soup, vegetables, and season with salt & pepper.  Add dumplings and simmer until dumplings reach desired consistency (I think ours took about 10 minutes).  Serve!

Orange Walnut Sour Cream Muffins

Hello, Jami here again.  I just made breakfast and I'm pretty pleased with the turnout!  So I decided to post, even though Jenna's in Chicago doing fun things like shopping at IKEA (*insert jealous grumbling here -again-*).

I made lemon sour cream muffins while I was at the end of my pregnancy - supposedly they were supposed to start labor, but they were SO GOOD that I decided they could start pregnancy instead...  But I decided sour cream is a wonderful ingredient for muffins.  This morning I confirmed that again!

Orange Sour Cream Muffins
  (originally from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/orange-sour-cream-muffins/detail.aspx)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I used walnuts)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream
6 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons orange juice concentrate (but I didn't have that so I juiced three tangelos my brother-in-law had given me and that came out to be about 2/3 cup)

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, nuts, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk the egg, sour cream, butter and orange juice concentrate. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 375 degrees F for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to a wire rack. Serve warm.

Chicken Stir-Fry

After a long hiatus, I wish I could say that we made the best meal ever!  However, this was not the case.  Harlee was mostly good while I was babysitting… he slept the whole time.  But he’s been a fussy butt the rest of the evening.  We discovered, however, that singing “Pop Goes the Weasel” to him when he started to fuss seemed to calm him down.  Interesting.

We decided to see how Harlee likes whiskey... haha just kidding!  He at least likes the bottle!

Harlee "enjoying" our Pop Goes the Weasel serenade...

Our dinner was chicken stir fry with egg rolls.  The stir fry was easy.  The egg rolls…… Well, maybe it was just me, since I was making them.  Turns out our oil was too hot, so they immediately burned when I dropped them in.  Oops!  What’s worse is I dropped three of them in at once, so three precious egg rolls burned.  We turned the heat down and waited a few minutes.  The next one turned out okay.  We waited a little longer then dropped some more in.  Those turned out alright, too.  The only problem was the lack of drainage.  My egg roll turned out pretty greasy on the inside.  Not too tasty, but if you could get past the burnt taste of the other ones, they were great!

Stir fry was pretty good, too.  At least something turned out okay!  I wish I could say this was a stellar meal, but I think the poor egg rolls just dampened my mood.  When it came time to eat, we stepped away from the stove and realized we’d smoked up the entire house.  Another oops!  20 minutes later, I think it’s all cleared out.

I guess we had to start the New Year off with a bang.  Too bad it wasn’t a good bang!

Chicken Stir-Fry

    (Jami's note:  I made this up as we went along so my measurements and cook times are, as usual, just estimates...)

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

~2 tbsp olive oil

~1 tbsp soy sauce

1/4 cup sweet & sour sauce

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets
1 green bell pepper, cut into small squares
1 small yellow onion, cut into small squares
1 cup snow peas
1 can sliced water chestnuts

Cook chicken breasts in olive oil until almost cooked through, add vegetables, soy sauce, and sweet & sour sauce.  Cook until veggies are tender and chicken is no longer pink.


Egg Rolls
   (from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-egg-rolls/detail.aspx.  On AllRecipes it's called the "Best" egg rolls, but we had to omit the "best" part... we changed it up a bit anyway from the original recipe.)

1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2-3 tsp soy sauce
1 quart peanut oil for frying
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons water
3-4 cups cole slaw mix (cabbage & carrots)
8 (7 inch square) egg roll wrappers

In a large skillet heat oil to about 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) or medium high heat (obviously we were lacking a thermometer...). While oil is heating, combine flour and water in a bowl until they form a paste. In a separate bowl combine cabbage mix with soy sauce, ginger and garlic powder. Mix all together.
Lay out one egg roll skin with a corner pointed toward you. Place about a 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the cabbage mixture on egg roll paper and fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll. Brush a bit of the flour paste on the final corner to help seal the egg roll.
Place egg rolls into heated oil and fry, turning occasionally, until golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels or rack. Serve!