Chicken and Dumplings - Oooo La La

I have made this chicken and dumplings recipe before but it was before I started writing this blog so I wanted to try it again. It was soooooo delicious the first time, it deserved a repeat performance.

A quick backstory about chicken and dumplings... One day in a land far, far away (Branson, Missouri) my mom and dad had chicken and dumplings at a friend's house. My dad loved it so much and wanted my mom to make it for them when they got home. My mom searched and searched for the perfect recipe but never seemed to get it right. It was too runny, it was too thick, the dumplings were too soft, the dumplings were too hard, well you get the point. She tried to perfect this recipe for MONTHS. Every weekend for 4 months we had chicken and dumplings for our Sunday night dinner. Every time we had to analyze it and figure out what needed to be added or taken away. It was brutal. That was the end of chicken and dumplings for me for a while. I was traumatized by them. My mom finally gave up her search for the perfect recipe and didn't thinkt about them again for years. I think she was traumatized too.

Needless to say, when I saw this recipe I was apprehensive. Did I want to get stuck in the never-ending chicken and dumplings loop too? Did I really want to go down that road? Yes. Apparently I did and I'm happy to report that it came out PERFECT the first time. And then perfect again the second time. I brought some to my parents for them to taste the perfection, and they gave it four thumbs up too :) If it's not an Italian dish and my parents like it, you know it's a winner.

Okay, now on to the recipe. Ree says that the prep time is 15 minutes and the cook time is 20 minutes. Remember those super powers? Well they must be at work again. If you look through the recipe you will notice that the time she states that it takes to do certain things is a lot more than 20 minutes. Maybe we need to get her a calculator? Just kidding, Ree. I have nothin' but love for you and your recipes :) This recipe took approximately 1.5 hours for me to make. So make sure you start two hours before you want to serve it.

The recipe calls for a whole fryer cut up into pieces. I didn't want to cut up a chicken - so I just grabbed a family pack of chicken thighs. I think dark meat has more flavor than white meat anyway so I didn't miss the whole chicken. If you REALLY feel the need to cut into a whole chicken. Here's a tutorial that shows you how to do it humanely.

You will need to season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, dredge them in flour and then brown them in a pot. You don't need to worry about the chicken cooking all of the way the first time because you will add it back in later. I browned the pieces for about 5 minutes on each side. After you put them back in the pot (when the recipe calls for it), you will need to take them out again to shred them. Make sure you count how many pieces go in the pot so you know how many need to come out. Then you can follow this video on how to shred chicken. You will need to remove the skin before you begin to shred the pieces. Just please note that the chicken is VERY HOT (it just came out of a pot of boiling liquid) so be very careful handling it.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cups of carrots, 1/2 cup of celery and one whole onion diced. I used a rough chop on these. I didn't totally mince it since I didn't want them to just evaporate into the soup. I also used around 3/4 cup of each. As for the onion - i used a white onion because I feel that yellow onions get too sweet when they are cooked and for those of you that know me, you know there will be no sweet and savory recipes here. Here's a tutorial on how to dice an onion if you feel like watching another video.

Speaking of sweet and savory, Ree calls for 1/2 cup of Apple Cider for this recipe. Um, did i read that right? Apple cider? You want me to pour apple cider into this delicate tasty creation from the gods? No thank you, Ree. No thank you. She says to trust her. Usually I do trust her, but not on this one. If you make this and you decide to put in the Apple Cider please let me know how it goes. Maybe I'm missing out on something wonderful, but I really have to trust my instincts on this one and beg you not to do it. Since I didn't use it, I just added extra chicken broth to the pot.

A note on the chicken broth. Buy extra. You will need it when you heat this up to have it later. The dumplings are floury so they will make the broth really thick after it sits for a while but if you add some extra chicken broth to the leftovers, it will be like the first time you had it.

As for the seasonings, it calls for 1/2 tsp of ground thyme and 1/4 tsp of tumeric. The first time I made this I used the full amounts of both. The second time I made it, I cut the 1/2 tsp of thyme down to 1/4 tsp. I felt that the first batch was overpowered by the thyme. A wise person once said that when it comes to cooking, you can always add but you can never take away. So true. So if you use 1/4 tsp and you feel like it needs more go ahead and add the rest.

And now for the most important part... The DUMPLINGS. Ree uses cornmeal in them. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I trusted her and made them exactly how she said. I have to say, the cornmeal gives the dumplings a nice texture. Make sure you let them sit before you drop them in the pot. And also please, please, please make sure you sift the dry ingredients before mixing it all together. I'm not sure why you need to sift dry ingredients, but i have learned the hard way that if a recipe says sift, you sift. Don't ask questions. Just do it.

That's it. Everything else is pretty straight forward. Oh, she does say that you need 2 tbsp of olive oil, but she never says when to use it so I just omitted it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. It really is wonderful.

Some notes to remember: "You can always add but you can't take away" This really is an important one to remember when you are cooking. And never, ever, ever use apple cider in chicken and dumplings. Really. Never.

Ginger Steak Salad - YUMMERS!

After this past weekend of junk food and Chipotle, I was craving some veggies so I dug through the Pioneer Woman's recipes and found this little gem. If you are craving greens and are craving some steak, this is the perfect salad for you! Or if you aren't craving either, you should still try it. Branch out and live a little.

I just went back to the recipe to see how many servings she says this makes. She says it serves 1. ONE?! That MUST be a typo. Alicia and I had it last night and we have PLENTY left over to have two more servings. So, I would say it serves at least four. The recipe calls for 8oz of salad greens, but I only used 6oz so it may even serve more if you use the total amount.

I love Thai Steak salads and this recipe reminded me of one. Thai salads usually include cucumbers, red onions and cilantro so I went ahead and added those ingredients to the salad. I also doubled the salad dressing recipe. If it ends up being too much for you, you can always keep it in the fridge and use it on a plain salad. It would be just as delicious.

As for the steak, I like my steaks medium-rare with a strong emphasis on the rare. I bought a nice Rib-Eye that was about 1lb in weight. It was a thick cut steak so it took about 2.5 minutes on each side in a REALLY hot skillet. I would flip it over every 1.5 minutes though because the brown sugar in the marinade will burn quickly. Speaking of the marinade - PW suggests that you marinate it for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Mine marinated for around 45 minutes and it was perfect.

As I was making this recipe, I realized that I not only hate chopping parsley but I also hate chopping ginger. I found this little tutorial for you though in case you want to reference it... it may make it easier for you, but if you are like me you will still loathe the task. I do LOVE chopping garlic though. Go figure.

I made this recipe pretty much exactly as Ree wrote it, except for the little changes I mentioned above. This is a GREAT salad that will satisfy any appetite!

Happy Cooking!

Beef with Snow Peas - Hell Yeah!

I made this last Saturday night and am just now posting about it. I'm the worst kind of procrastinator... I have been crowned the queen of procrastination. Right now I'm writing this because what I should be doing is organizing and cleaning, but that sounds hideously boring so I shall write about glorious beef and snow peas instead.

This is one of the Pioneer Woman's most favorite recipes and I have to say it is one of my favorites too! For this recipe I already had the Soy Sauce, Cooking Sherry, Brown sugar, cornstarch, crushed red pepper and rice on hand. Shhhhhh.. don't tell anyone, but I made this recipe a couple of months ago and LOVED it. So I remade it so I could 1, blog about it and 2, eat it again!

I had to purchase the snow peas, beef, ginger and green onion.. so my total per serving only came out to 2.20! Woo hoo! PW says this makes 8 servings and she's probably right about that.

A note about the rice. The recipe calls for Jasmine or other long-grained rice. Save yourself some time and effort and buy this rice. Most of the time when you use Jasmine or Basmati rice, you have to rinse it, and rinse it, and rinse it, and rinse it some more until the water runs clear so you don't get sticky, icky rice. But, the Mahatma brand Jasmine rice is so easy to cook and it is delicious and fluffy and you will want to eat the whole pot! If you made the Pasta with Bacon and Mushrooms you should have some chicken broth left over. If you do, use 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 water for the liquid. Also, if you add a tablespoon or two of butter (depending on how much rice you are making) and some salt you won't be disappointed. It really brings out the wonderful flavor of the rice.

Okay, enough about the rice. Let's get to the beef. For this recipe you need a Flank Steak. Flank steak is VERY tender when sliced VERY thin. It's not so tender when you don't slice it thin. So please for the love of all that is good and holy slice the flank steak thinly. You need a SHARP knife to do this and not a serrated knife. Please do NOT use a serrated knife. You will destroy the meat and you will hate this recipe. Cut the meat against the grain and it'll be a very easy task.

Ree calls for peanut oil or sesame oil to brown the beef and the snow peas. I actually used about a TBSP of sesame oil and two TBSP of olive oil. I love, love, love sesame oil and i think it gives the dish a nice flavor.

Speaking of the oil, please take note that when she says the pan needs to be VERY hot, it needs to be VERY hot. If it's not you won't sear in the flavor and your beef and snow peas will be very, very sad. So since you have oil in a VERY hot pan it will spit and dance around in there. Please don't let kids near the stove when cooking this.

The other thing that I modified was the soy sauce. I used a 1/4 c of full sodium soy sauce and a 1/4 c of low sodium soy sauce. I did this so i wouldn't have to add salt at the end. You should NOT have to add any salt at all to this recipe if you make it this way.

Everything else I did according to Ree's recipe and it was very easy to follow and really, really delicious. If you make this, I expect an invite for dinner :)

Pasta with Bacon and Mushrooms

I was looking for a recipe to cook on Friday night and stumbled upon this one from Ree's extensive collection. Pasta, Okay. Mushrooms, Yum. Bacon, YES please. So I headed to the store to get my ingredients for this one and for the one that I cooked on Saturday night... look for that post soon.

This recipe has pretty simple ingredients and for my calculations I already had the Olive Oil and the Garlic. Ree says that this recipe serves 4. So according to her calculations this recipe cost 4.70 per person. Please keep in mind that i'm not figuring out how much one cup of parmesean calculates to, I'm just adding up what I bought divided by the number of people it serves. I figure that if you have to buy everything anyway you should know how much it will really cost. The good news is that this recipe definitely serves more than 4. I don't know how they grow them out there on the pioneer front, but we have already had 4 healthy servings and we have at least two more. Soooo according to 6 servings, it will be 3.13/serving. If you have a little bird appetite you might even be able to get 8 servings out of this so then it's only 2.35. Just depends on how hungry you are.

So, I get home with the ingredients and head to work on the recipe. This time I calculated how long it took me to do the recipe versus how long she says it takes to cook. According to her it takes 25 minutes total. That's prep time + cooking time. For me it took 45 minutes total. See, I told you she has super powers.

Let's start with the prep. The first thing you need to do is get everything chopped and diced and ready to go. So, we'll start with the most important part. The BACON. This recipe calls for 3 pieces of bacon... um, okay. I made it 8 pieces of bacon. I mean, who doesn't like bacon? If you don't like bacon, then you aren't going to like this blog. So slice up your 3 to 8 pieces in 1/2" pieces and set aside. Grab your mushrooms and clean them off. I was always told that mushrooms like cats hate water (yes, i did just successfully pull off a cat/mushroom analogy. Jealous? you should be.). I never, ever rinse them under the faucet. I always dampen a paper towel and just wipe off the dirt. But in doing some research there is much controversy over the proper way to wash a mushroom. Who knew. Some people say don't do it, others say it's fine as long as you don't soak them. So you chose whatever way you feel more comfortable. Once they are clean, grab a sharp knife and thinly slice them. Set those aside too.

Grab your parsley and take off a bunch of it. I used a handful. Wash it and pat it dry with a paper towel. Then put it on your cutting board and say a prayer to your higher power for the strength to chop it. I HATE chopping parsley. With a passion, I hate it. I've found that if you bunch it all up in your fingers and then chop, it makes it easier. Keep chopping until it is finely minced. Give thanks that it is over and you shall never have to do it again. Well, at least for that day.

Now you are ready to start cooking! If you follow the recipe, it is all pretty simple to do. If you are using a non-stick pan it is going to be really, really hard for you to brown the mushrooms. The non-stick surface doesn't really brown things very well. Turn the heat on your stove on HIGH. I did medium high for about 5 minutes and then really, really high for another 5 minutes. That seemed to work well. If you have a cast-iron skillet, then i would just follow the directions that she has, since that is what she uses.

Ree recommends that you use thin spaghetti or angel hair. Thin spaghetti and angel hair really absorb the sauce... so unless you plan on eating it all in one night or you plan to make some sort of sticky pasta sculpture out of it, you should opt for something that won't absorb as much. Maybe penne or farfalle. I would also recommend doubling the liquid in the recipe. So double cream, half and half and chicken broth. She says that for the chicken broth you can use white wine instead if you want. I actually used half chicken broth and half white wine. I think the white wine gives it a nice flavor. She recommends that if the sauce is absorbing too much to add some of the water from the pasta. Yuck. That just gives you, well, watery sauce. If after you double the liquids it is still too thick, add more chicken broth. You'll be glad that you did.

Now, here's a quiz for you. Ree forgets one critical part in the preparation instructions. Go back and reread them.

Do you know what it is?

No?

Okay, I'll tell you.... In my opinion, she left out the most important part. She tells you to cook the bacon and then set it aside, but she never tells you to add it back in! The shame. The shame. How could she forget the BACON?! I made an executive decision and added it in right after I turned off the heat on the sauce.

If you don't eat all of the pasta in one night, when you reheat the sauce add a little chicken broth to thin it out. You may need to add some extra Parmesan as well. Your call.

Well, that's all for today. Happy parsley chopping to you and yours.

Chicken Tortilla Soup - YUM

I made the Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup last night. It was a cold, cold day in Texas (yes, they do happen) and soup sounded like just what I needed. Ree just posted the recipe on her site, so I took it as a sign from above that it was meant to be... and it was.

I would copy and paste the recipe here, but I'm afraid that there might be some copyright issues, and I don't want Ree mad at me. I've heard she has quite a temper. She is a redhead after all. Okay so I haven't heard that, but it makes for a better, more interesting post.

Okay, enough with the rambling. Let's get down to business. As I said before, it was a brisk day in Dallas so I bundled up and headed to Kroger to purchase my ingredients. So needless to say, these prices are based on Kroger prices in Dallas. Depending on where you shop you may spend more or less. Also, there were a few items that I already had on hand - the Olive Oil, garlic powder, garlic, and salt (I would have to forfeit my Italian card if i didn't have these ingredients in my home). With the ingredients that I purchased it worked out to about $4.58/serving. According to PW this recipe makes 8 servings. We have already had 5 servings of it and judging by the Tupperware containers taking over the fridge, we probably have at least another 5 servings to go.

Now down to the recipe. I used three chicken breasts instead of two. I'm such a rebel. What would PW think of me? I like my soup a little chunky and extra chicken won't hurt a thing.

PW says you need 1 cup of diced onion - that's about 1/2 of a regular sized onion. She also says that you need 1/4c of each green bell pepper and red bell pepper. That's like 1/4 of the pepper. I don't know about you but if I only use 1/4 of a pepper, I will put the unused 3/4 back in the fridge and I won't see it again until it has become somewhat of a science experiment. So to save the red pepper and onion from this horrible fate, I just used the whole thing. Yes, the whole thing. That's way more pepper and onion than the recipe calls for but channel your inner James Dean and you'll be glad you did. As for the green pepper, well that got stuck in the fridge because i'm not particularly fond of green pepper and i didn't want to overwhelm the soup with that green pepper flavor. I'm sure it will haunt me from beyond the grave, but I'm okay with that.

The recipe calls for 32oz of Chicken Stock. I used around 40oz because I had some left in the fridge from another recipe. As for everything else, I did as I was told.

If you follow her recipe you really can't mess anything up. This recipe is really pretty easy and there wasn't anything that was difficult to follow. Plus she always puts up really pretty pictures so if you ever get confused by anything you have a visual aid to help you. Lots and lots of visual aids. I really don't know how she has time to make up a recipe, cook the recipe, take pictures of every step of the recipe, and then BLOG about it. She must have super powers. I want super powers.

Feel free to make the recipe your own as I did, but please, please, please don't skimp on the toppings! They are the most important part. So ladle that soup in a bowl, put on a dollop of sour cream, add some cheese, red onion and lots of cilantro and Voila you have a little taste of heaven. When you're done, go ahead and lick the bowl. You know you want to. Don't worry I won't judge.

Introduction

I just wanted to put a first post in here to break the blog ice.

I discovered the pioneer woman Ree Drummond (every time I say her last name, I can't help but sing the theme song to Different Strokes) last year when a friend of mine made a delicious mac and cheese dish for our not-so-consistent supper club. It was like heaven in my mouth and I knew that it was going straight to my thighs. One can always tell a good recipe by the speed in which it attaches itself to random body parts.

One of my new years resolutions is to cook more at home and thought that this would be the perfect way to do it. So in the spirit of Julia and Julia, I will be picking one to five pioneer woman recipes to cook per week. Okay let's be realistic - it will probably be like one recipe every two weeks but i'm going to try really hard to be consistent with them.

I will post my experiences with the recipes. I am not a chef, but I'm not a novice either so I will try to give a realistic account of how easy/hard the recipes are. I will try to break it down by cost too so you know how much it will be per serving and, finally, I will let you know if I like it or not... I mean that is the most important part, right?

I have already made several of her recipes and I have loved each and every one with the exception of two. I will be attempting to make those two recipes again in case it was user error. Keep reading the blog to find out how it goes :)

In closing, I will leave you with a little ear worm - it is a gift from me to you. You're welcome.

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.... and continue :)