I’ve attempted chicken and dumplings before, and it wasn’t exactly pretty. I couldn’t figure out the whole dumpling situation–they seemed to be doughy, no matter how long I cooked them. Come to find out later, dumplings sometimes take WAYYY longer to cook than I ever imagined. Hmph. I was discouraged by the experience and hadn’t tried it since, instead choosing to leave it to the professionals (like, say… my mom).
But when I saw this recipe pop up in my Google Reader, I was inspired to give it a try, simply because it is a crockpot dumpling recipe. Fix it and forget it? Those are my kind of dumplings, for sure.
Because it cooks for so long, the chicken is fall-apart tender, and I loved the combination of vegetables. The basil seasoning, in both the soup and the dumplings, is a wonderful addition and makes this recipe slightly different than your typical chicken and dumplings. The dumplings themselves are full of flavor, what with the basil, garlic powder, and butter. Melissa wasn’t kidding–this dish is delicious!
You definitely have to allow yourself enough time, since it involves at least 8 hours of total cook time. Also, you need to plan ahead so that you are home to be able to make the dumplings two hours before you want to eat. Even though it involves a few different steps, it is a really easy recipe and it’s perfect when you want a great meal with very little effort.
Chicken and Basil Dumplings
(Source: Delicious Meliscious)
Soup Ingredients:
– 1 chopped onion
– 1 cup carrots, diced
– 1 cup celery, diced
– 1 cup frozen peas
– 2 cloves of garlic, minced
– 8-10 cups of chicken broth
– 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts (you can put them in frozen to start)
– 1 tsp. dried basil
– salt and pepper to taste
Soup Directions:
Put all ingredients above into slow cooker and cook on low heat for 6 hours.
Dumpling Ingredients:
– 1 1/4 cups of flour
– 1/2 tsp. dried basil
– 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
– 1/4 tsp. salt
– 2 tsp. baking powder
– 2 tbsp. butter, softened
– 1/2 cup low fat buttermilk
– 1 large egg, lightly beaten
To Prepare Dumpling Dough:
Combine the flour with basil, garlic powder, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl. But in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Combine buttermilk and egg, stirring with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring until just combined.
Remaining Ingredients:
1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/4 cup of chicken broth (you can dip some out of the crockpot to mix)
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
To Finish Soup:
Remove the chicken from the slow cooker and shred with 2 forks. Add the chicken back into the slow cooker. Combine the cornstarch with the chicken broth and mix thoroughly to make a slurry. Add slurry to the soup.
Dumpling Directions:
Drop dumpling dough, 1-2 tsp. per dumpling, into the chicken soup. Cover and continue to cook on low for another hour and a half to two hours. Add the chopped parsley to the soup and serve.
We recently decided it’s time to stop procrastinating on some of our home improvement projects and get ‘er done. For our first project, we’re planning to tackle tiling our bathroom floor.
F-U-N. Especially since it’s our only bathroom and it’s going to be in shambles (and toilet-less. That’s right, NO TOILET.) I’m scared. Hold me.
Still, we want to do it and we’ll make it work somehow. Today, we went to a “clinic” at Home Depot to learn more about tiling. I had a general idea of how to do it based on all of my HGTV watching, but it was good to have an actual lesson. I took a lot of notes.
Afterward, we spent some time browsing the aisles of Home Depot to price all of the materials we’ll need for the project. And I have to say, although everyone keeps saying that tiling is not difficult and it’ll be a breeze, it’s certainly a lot more involved than I originally thought. I definitely had a few moments of “what are we thinking?” but I think that it’ll be worth it when it’s all said and done.
Now, we just have to set a date for the project. Which should be… interesting. If you don’t hear from me about the tiling project by the end of April, kick me in the ass, will ya?
Now that lent is upon us, the challenge of coming up with meatless dinners has begun. Thankfully, one of my favorites–breakfast for dinner–is usually meatless for us. Because my favorite breakfast for dinner dish? PANCAKES.
We had a can of apple pie filling in the cupboard, and I figured we’d cook up some plain pancakes and top them with the apples. However, I got to thinking… instead of plain pancakes, why not make pancakes with a complementary flavor for the apples? And of course, the next thought: cinnamon.
Because I mean… DUH.
I googled and found a lovely looking cinnamon pancake recipe right off the bat. We gave them a try and they are wonderful! They are fluffy, and have a great cinnamon flavor. They tasted fantastic with the apples, but were wonderful with just a little bit of maple syrup, too. We’ll certainly be making these again very soon.
I doubled the original recipe because let’s face it… six pancakes is just NOT enough. Also, I’ve found that leftover pancakes are really good if you pop them in the toaster to reheat, so I knew we wouldn’t have a problem with a few extras. We got about 15 pancakes out of the recipe, but obviously it’ll depend on the size of your pancakes!
Cinnamon Pancakes
(Source: Adapted from Sugarlaws)
Ingredients:
– 1 & 3/4 cups milk
– 2 cups plus 4 tbsp. all-purpose flour
– 4 tsp. baking powder
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 4 tsp. ground cinnamon
– 4 tbsp. sugar
– 2 egg
– 2 tbsp. butter, melted
Directions:
1. Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth.
2. Heat a frying pan or skillet on the stovetop. (Or use your electric griddle, if you have one!) Spray with cooking spray or grease with a little extra butter. Ladle out 1/4 cup of pancake batter at a time, and cook about 1 min on each side, flipping each pancake midway through.
3. Serve with maple syrup, honey, apple pie filling, or extra butter.
After 20 seasons, “Survivor” is still on the air. Somehow, some way… it keeps people coming back for more. Someone has to be watching it. Actually, considering the show’s success, I’m guessing it’s a lot of someones.
Alright, alright… I’ll confess.
I’m one of them. I just can’t help myself.
Surely I’m not the only one. Anyone else out there care to admit that they are still into “Survivor”?
I started watching during the first season, when I was a senior in high school. It was on throughout the entire summer, and I distinctly remember sitting down with my entire family to watch it every week. The finale was on shortly before I left for college, and I was pretty much hooked.
At some point along the way, I did give it up for a while. There have been a handful of seasons that, for one reason or another, I couldn’t get into and skipped watching altogether.
Still, when you’ve watched as many seasons as I have, it’s always great when they do something like this season–Heroes vs. Villains. I loooove when they bring back all the old players to do it again.
The first All-Star season (back in 2004!) was one of my favorite seasons ever. I had never seen Boston Rob before, since Marquesas was one of the seasons I didn’t watch. But in All-Stars, I quickly grew to love him as he controlled the game, continuously managed to get people on his side only to back-stab them later, and somehow managed to make Amber fall in love with him in the process. In short: a great, great player. I even went on to watch Rob and Amber compete on “The Amazing Race,” rooting for them all the way.
So you can imagine how pleased I was when I saw that he’d be coming back for Heroes vs. Villains. And tonight, Rob was particularly glorious. A couple of my favorite Rob moments:
“Again, again, again… I’m on the buffoon tribe.”
“When I finally came to, I had a moment of clarity. And that was: stop trying to be the good guy. Because I’m trying to be so good, I physically made myself sick. Just do what everybody wants you to do and be the villain. The doctors checked me out, basically told me I have the flu and a little bitty case of crybabyitis. But now I gotta start smacking ‘em into shape.”
This one from Courtney gave me a chuckle, too: “Boston Rob is the bright shining star and he gets so frustrated with these fools. I hope he doesn’t drop dead in the next few days because we will all die!”
I’ve definitely been finding myself rooting for the Villains, even though I can’t stand half the people on their tribe (Jerri, Randy, and Coach–although I have to admit that Coach has proved to not be nearly as annoying this season).
Also, I’ve been surprised how my opinions about some of my “favorites” are changing. Take James, for instance. I loved him in his previous seasons, probably because he is so adorably dumb. But last night, he was ridiculously hot-headed, and although I didn’t disagree with him, his temper was a little much. Rupert has been pathetic and annoying as hell. And although I really liked Sugar during her season, I was not sad to see her be the first to go this time around.
Anyway, only two episodes into the season, I’m excited to have all of the familiar faces back in the game, and can’t wait to see how this all shakes out.
I am happy to be able to say we have booked our next vacation! With no trips to plan or to look forward to, I was going through travel withdrawals there for a while. :)
Drumroll, please…
We’re going to Florida!
Even though Florida seems to be THE vacation destination for people who live where we live, neither of us have been anywhere in the state aside from Orlando. We figured now would be the perfect time to remedy that.
So, in April, we’re flying down to Miami, and from there we’re going to split our time between Miami and Key West. We’re going to do the infamous drive down to the Florida Keys by taking US-1, also known as the Overseas Highway. I’m super excited for that.
Now we are just trying to figure out where to stay, and what we want to do! Key West offers so many different things that we have to narrow down our list of “must-do” activities. I’m especially looking forward to a little relaxing, too.
Let the countdown begin!
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
