Chicken and Dumplings

Ok. Being born and raised in the South, if you don't know a good recipe for Chicken and Dumplins, then you just might as well move up North and call yourself a Yankee. heehee!! :)
BUT! Lucky for you; even a Yankee can enjoy this amazing comfort dish. I have born my own recipe...and it's so simple, you'll wonder why you've never done this before. If you have time... and the resources... please try this simple dish. And, if you do.. leave me some feedback. I wanna know what you think.

What you'll need:

one pk of chicken thighs (about 6 thighs should work)

Mary B's Open Kettle Dumplings (I said easy!!)

Can of Cream of Celery soup

Can of Cream of Chicken soup

Box of Chicken Broth 

^^This stuff. Plus chicken^^

What to do:

 In a large boiling pot, add the chicken stock and enough water to equal about 2.5 quarts of liquid. Add your chicken, some salt and pepper and a little garlic powder if you want. Boil for about 20 minutes or until chicken is done.

Remove chicken from pot and allow it to cool. Into the SAME POT OF BROTH, add both cans of soup. Stir it all together really good. Now, it's DUMPLIN' TIME! :)

You're gonna want to crack those frozen dumplings into thirds. You don't want to fight a 6 inch dumpling. So, crack each frozen dumpling into thirds and add them to the broth. As you add, make sure you stir so they don't stick. Once you've added all the dumplings, turn your heat up until it starts to boil. 

Stir it really good, put a lid on it, turn it down to low and let it simmer for 30-40 minutes. Make sure you come back and stir it regularly so the dumplings don't stick. 

After about 30 minutes, pull the chicken into pieces and add it to the dumplings. Stir it up, take the lid off and let it cook another 10-15 minutes.

Serve and watch them smile! :)

Pizza Casserole

Easy schmeezey recipe right here. And, it's a pretty tasty dish. Found a recipe on the internet that gave me the idea, but of course I put my own spin on it. So, here it is!

What you'll need:

either 2 regular jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce OR one HUGE jar. 

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Pepperoni's 

1.5 lb of ground beef

1 pkg of rigatoni noodles or ziti noodles or whatever. 

9x13 casserole dish

Brown your ground beef and boil the noodles until done. Then, layer ingredients into the casserole dish like this:

Sauce

beef

noodles

cheese

beef

noodles

sauce

cheese

pepperoni

 

^^It should look something similar to this^^

Cover it with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Then, take the foil off and bake another 15 minutes. This should be your finished product:

 

Yummy!! Easy and tasty! Feeds the whole family! Enjoy!

 

I made an Apple Pie!

Holy Moly! I have never baked pies. Never tried it. This weekend, I decided to try my hand at a home made Apple Pie for my honey.

AMAZING!! I am going to share this recipe with you..and you've GOTTA try it. I found the basis for the recipe on a site, then I tweaked it and added to it until it became MINE! ALL MINE! So... here ya go..

Apple Pie worthy of competition!

2 9" pie shells
8 Granny Smith Apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
1/2 cup of unsweetened butter
3 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
1/4 cup of water (minus 1 tblspoon)
1 tbsp vanilla extract (to replace the tbsp of water you removed)

Preheat your oven to 425.

Ok.. here we go. Stay with me here. Get your 9" pie plate. Unroll one pie shell and dust both sides with flour. Place it into your pan and make sure it's nice and pretty.
Melt butter in a medium sized sauce pan, then mix in flour until it gets good and incorporated. Once it starts looking pasty, add brown sugar, white sugar, water, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg. Stir this really well and bring it to a boil. Once it bubbles a minute or two, turn it down to simmer.

DO NOT skimp on the 8 apples! You want to get them all sliced and piled into the pie shell. Just mound them up! Go ahead and pour the sugar mixture on top of the apples. Reserve about a 1/4 cup for the top!

Now, you gotta do this quick. Actually, you should already have your top crust ready to go, because that sauce caramelizes FAST! I use a basket weave design on top of my pie. I think it's pretty!... But, feel free to cut a design or just whatever you wanna do.
For the sake of me.. we're using the basket weave pattern! Seal your pie crusts. Then, you can brush the top crust with the remaining sauce to make it nice a brown and sweet and crusty.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes!

Then, drop your temp to 350 and bake for 45 more minutes. Make sure your apples are soft.

A couple pointers?... You may want to place a cookie sheet on the lowest rack to catch drippings... and.. bake your pie on the middle, to low rack. Helps it to not burn the crust before it's done.

I know how tempted you will be to cut this puppy as soon as it comes out of the oven.. but resist the urge. Let the pie cool for about 90 minutes before you cut it. That allows the sauce to gel up and to make this one AMAZING pie!!!!

Please try this pie. And, when you do; take a picture of it and post it here for me! :) I wanna see!