Week 7: Love Inspired Dish - Chicken & Dumplings

When I think about love and showing love, food is one of my favorite ways to show my love.  I so enjoy cooking and cooking for other people is top of my list of satisfying ways to spend my time and energy.  Watching someone I love eat delicious things I've made is just the best! 

Chicken and dumplings is one of those stick to your ribs, warm in your tummy, love filled foods that just make you feel all snuggly.  My dear friend Carolyn was visiting from LA and came up to visit with my sister.  My birthday was on Sunday and they came to help us celebrate and to ring in my last year in my twenties. 

We wanted to go out for most of the day (hiking, touring, havocing, etc.) so the crock pot was the way to make this delicious meal.  Four skin-on chicken thighs and a chicken breast went in on the bottom.

1 can cream of mushroom and 1 cup chopped onion went in next.

1 cup chopped celery and 1 cup chopped carrots added some amazing color and flavor. About 3 cups of chicken broth, and if you have it, a chicken bullion cube are crucial for the rich chicken flavor. 

Mix it all up and cook on high for 6 hours.

It was so pretty cooking there.  I love my crock pot and Andrew and I use it regularly.  It makes the whole house smell good and it is a breeze for cleaning up. 

It cooked down quite a bit and the chicken thighs fell off the bone.  I turned off the crock pot and removed the bones and the skin from the mix.  Once it had cooled a bit, I skimmed off some of the fat.   

The dumpling mix included an egg white which Cooks Illustrated says helps hold the dumplings together.

In order to get the dumplings to cook, the broth should be simmering.  Rather than waiting for the soupy stuff to re-warm in the crock pot, I threw it in a pan and cranked it up.  So pretty!

The dumplings took longer to cook up than I thought, and the waiting was near painful, but man oh man was it worth it.  After a day of rock clamoring and walking against the wind, this was perfect.  It was a wonderful birthday dinner and I was most certainly surrounded by love.

Week 2 Sriracha Fried Rice

So, when planning last nights Orange Chicken we intended to pair it with a fried rice.  We did all the shopping  for our orange chicken and thought "There is no reason to buy rice, we have a 10lb bag of it at home!" We got home and I spent the next 30 minutes searching our house in a huff.  The rice is nowhere to be found.  Nowhere. Grrr.  I was baffled - and still am.

When out on the town today, we picked up a small bag of jasmine rice (I will find that 10lb bag) and when we got home I got out the rice maker to get rolling.  Without paying close attention, I washed the rice and poured it into the rice maker, then started measuring and adding water. A small pool of water appeared underneath the rice maker and I thought "huh".  It wasn't till Andrew said to me "Oh god. Unplug it!!" that I realized what was happening.  I forgot to put the bowl into the ricer maker and had poured the rice and, more tragically, the water directly into the electrical hot plate which has a hole into the inner workings. 

Well, shit. Andrew handed me towels to sop up the water and after a few beats said, "Let me know when it is ok to laugh." Such a good husband. 

He spent the next 30 minutes taking the whole thing apart and getting all the rice and water out of the insulation, the levers, the wires, the crevices, etc. A little red wine, a pair of pliers, a screw driver and a project and Andrew is pretty much in heaven. He managed to get it all fixed and we were back up and running in just under an hour.   (I managed to also drop an egg on the floor and defrost frozen turkey incorrectly... I was in fine form tonight.)

On to the tonight's dish: I made Sriracha fried rice! Some peas and carrots, fish sauce and soy sauce, an egg and some chilled rice = DELICIOUS.  Somehow, I had never made fried rice before, but it turned out well and I plan on making this easy dish a more regular item in our house. 

I cannot wait to eat the leftovers.