My Own Chicken and Dumplings

When I was a kid, a member of my extended family used to make awesome pots of chicken and dumplings. No one in history has ever made chicken and dumplings as good as hers as far as I’m concerned! However, a few years ago, I began to want them so bad I could almost literally salivate from yearning. So, I googled every single recipe I could find, but much to my dismay, none of them were like hers. Not even close.

So, I tried to remember how she made them, though it was years since I’d watched her cook. Fortunately, I had picked up enough of her technique to guess my way through the plethora of recipes I’d found until I got it so close to her recipe that I don’t think it would have turned out that good if she’d taught me herself.

Stories like these are how all the great recipes are born! Without further ado, here is the recipe that I forged from memory and google!

Ingredients:

3-4 lbs of chicken (with a bone in there somewhere is the best way to go).
Salt and pepper to taste
Water (duh)
Self Rising flour, about 4 cups plus
1 cup or a dash more buttermilk
¼ cup of vegetable oil
3-4 tbsp. butter
1-2 cans of evaporated milk (depending on how much broth you have).


Directions:

Put your (bone in) chicken in a pot and cover with water. Add just a few dashes of salt for extra umph. Cover and boil on medium-high heat until your chicken is done and your broth is a nice color.


Remove chicken from water and set aside to cool for a few minutes.



Add evaporated milk to the water and a bit of pepper. Replace the lid to the pot and wait for it to boil slowly.

While you’re waiting on it to boil for a minute, get out your handy dandy mixing bowl and mix the following: flour (2 cups), butter, veggie oil, and buttermilk. Mix well. This is your dough for the southern style dumplings. Yummy!




Okay, so by now you have a good boil going on in your pot, right? Right…Now, you add some flour…do ¼ cup at a time until it’s mixed in just right. You want to mix well after each addition and don’t add more than a few cups. Stand there and mix well until you get a good thickness going on, as thick as you want it.

Now, the fun stuff! With your pot going on medium high heat, you want to go ahead and get your dumplings in there and let them cook too! With a fork, scoop out little dumpling sized bits of dough and dump them in the pot. When it’s all in there, then you can shred up your chicken and add it too if you want. Or you can shred half and leave half to eat on the side. Or just eat it all on the side. Really, it’s completely up to you, but I like mine in the mix with the dumplings and the soup!

Let it cook just a bit together before serving. Stir well. Should only take about ten or fifteen minutes for all the flavors to co-exist well together.



You can serve all this with cole slaw and green beans, rolls, mashed potatoes and just whatever your little heart desires. I don’t like a lot of side dishes with mine, just the chicken and dumplings. Enjoy! Happy cooking!

Glazed Carrots

Okay so no long story as to why I love glazed carrots. I just do, okay, and they're so perfect for fall, take very little time to prepare, and are a great dish for Thanksgiving, in case any of you are having trouble with your Thanksgiving menus. So, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs. of baby carrots or larger carrots cut into smaller pieces
3 tbs. butter
1/4 cup or less brown sugar
1/4 cup water

Directions:

In a large pan melt butter and brown sugar slightly together. Add carrots, then water. Bring heat up to medium-high, and allow carrots to cook until tender. Enjoy!


***See...I told you it was easy! :)

Egg Omlets, perfect for fall breakfasts!

Well, now that school schedules and routines have been established and reestablished this year, I thought I'd move right along to fall things. I don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but nothing warms me up more on a fall morning like a beautifully planned egg omelet and a cup of hot coffee.

When I say beautifully planned, I mean that I make them big enough to feed a horse, cause I never eat one alone. My kids love them too!

Without further ado, here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

6 eggs (with or without yolks, is up to you)
1/8 cup evaporated milk
salt and pepper to taste
butter (around 3 tbsp.)

***Optional Ingredients***

(These are the things that you can variate in your egg dishes)

shredded cheddar cheese
mushrooms
shredded or cubed ham and/or turkey
ground sausage, cooked already
bacon, cooked and crumbled
green peppers
onions
red bell peppers
banana peppers
jalepenos

Bon Apetit! Enjoy :)

Back to School Mess...

Yup, it's that time of the year again. The kids will all be going back to school, and the mommies will be wiping tears from those going for the first time. Or, wiping their own...whichever, possibly both.

My schedule is nuts when school starts. I get the kids ready, get them to the bus, then come home and do the house cleaning thing, the paying bills thing, and sometimes, when I'm lucky, the author thing.

This year, I'm pretty excited. Tristan will start his first year of head start. He's three, so he won't be gone as long as the other kids will be, but he'll be going, and he'll be happy once he gets used to it. He neeeeeeeeds to be around others his age!

My problem is that I'll be alone all day long. What's a mom supposed to do? I'm so used to having Tristan on my heels all through the day. When I mop he's two steps behind me, washcloth in hand, trying to help. When I vacuum, he's riding the shop vac (yeah, it's super cute). When I talk on the phone, he's in my lap begging to talk too. So, now it's just good ol' Mom...

Anyhow, here are some good ideas for after school snacks that are pretty light on your budget.

*Apples, oranges, any fruits.
*Cereal bars. You can make homemade ones too.
*Yogurt, pudding, nuts.
*Fresh baked cookies. Look for cookie dough sales or make your own. Heck, buy ready made ones if you're pressed for time.
*Crescent rolls. Fill them with ham and cream cheese. Boy, those are good!
*Mini pizzas. Buy dough, cut into balls, pat out into mini sizes, cover in sauce and a tsp. of mozarella and a slice of pepperoni. Ball it up and make it into a filled ball. Put them into the oven and bake on 450 degrees until done. Yum :)
*Fried Pies...I'll find a recipe to post later, probably this fall when pies start to become popular again lol.

Welp, hope that helped you out some. I gotta get back to organizing school clothes and getting backpacks ready!

Dark & Delicious,
Rhiannon Mills

The Perfect Brownie Pan

My mom got this pan for me for my anniversary/Mother's Day, and I have to say, when it first came out I wanted it. My sister-in-law got one for Christmas and they said it makes the best brownies.

When I found out I was going to get the pan, I was already planning recipes. Of course the first time I used it wasn't anything spectacular. I just decided to let Betty Crocker do the work. I did add cream cheese icing to the chocolate that came with it though.

Anyway, I love the pan. The brownies were perfectly moist on the inside and a little crunchy on the edges---my favorite type of brownies. The pan stays true its name. I didn't make brownies often because the pan I used was always sticking and the brownies weren't too great. I mean they were edible but the brownie pan makes much better brownies.

I recommend that all my fellow brownie lovers get this pan.

Easy Chicken Strips

Okay, so I've been doing a lot of cooking homemade lately. Everything has to be as close to homemade as possible or I just don't feel adequate.

My kids, and probably most of everyone else's kids, would rather have chicken strips or nuggets these days than a burger in their happy meals. So, I started making chicken strips at home, all by myself.

The easiest way to do this is buy fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It's cheaper than buying chicken that's already cut into strips, and all you have to do is cut them into strips yourself with a sharp knife.

Mix together the following:

2 cups of flour
season salt to taste
pepper to taste
soul seasoning to taste
onion powder to taste
garlic salt to taste
thyme to taste

Dip your chicken in either egg or buttermilk, then into the flour mix. Fry these in crisco on med to med-hi heat. Then, all you have to do is enjoy the chicken...

My Grandma's 83rd Birthday!

Last Sunday, May 23rd, was my Grandma's 83rd birthday and my family decided to throw her a surprise party for the occasion.


I'm usually the one to bake her cake. Well, okay, I have been for the past few years. She expects it of me now! So, as we planned out a menu for the surprise party that was held at Twin Falls State Park, I started cake planning, in my head first, of course.


Church members were all there. Aunts, uncles, cousins...It was nice. However, the nicest part was knowing that she already knew I was baking her a cake. When I asked how she already knew, she said, "Because you always do."


My grandma, Georgie Ellen Sizemore-Shrewsberry, taught me everything I know about working in the kitchen and baking. The least that I can do for her is bake her birthday cake, right?

Anyhow, the party was a hit, and the cake was gone practically before I even sat it on the table.



Moral of this story? Well, when your grandmother teaches you how to be a baking whiz (yes, I'm bragging), you bake her a cake anytime she wants one!