Cold Weather Comfort Food and a Smoke Disaster

The weather has turned cold. Wrapped up in a hand-knitted throw late Thursday afternoon, I contemplated taking myself out to dinner. After peeking out the window at a cloud-covered and ominous sky, I decided I'd make something warm and comforting: chicken n' dumplings. And yes, you need to write "and" with a single "n" and an apostrophe. Somehow the dish doesn't taste as down-home good when you think of it as "chicken AND dumplings." This dish was passed down to me from my great-grandmother, who inspired in all her following generations a love of baking, comfort food, and what I like to consider good ol' down-home cooking.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
INGREDIENTS:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup corn kernels
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup carrots
1 cup plus 2 tbsp flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp butter
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
1 egg

DIRECTIONS:

Blend 1 cup flour with baking powder and salt. Cut in 1/2 cup butter using a pastry cutter or two knives. Set aside. Beat egg in a 1 cup measuring cup, then add milk to fill cup. Blend into flour mixture. Pastry should not be liquidy. If so, add a little more flour.

Melt 2 tbsp butter.
Add remaining 2 tbsp. flour until thickened.
Slowly add 1 cup chicken broth, stirring until thick.
Slowly add 1 cup milk, stirring until thick.
Add pepper and poultry seasoning.
Place chicken breasts on bottom of 2 quart baking dish (make sure your baking dish is large enough -- I'll give you an excellent reason later), layer corn, peas, and carrots over top and around.

Pour thickened sauce over the top. Scoop flour mixture and drop directly onto top of vegetable and chicken dish, leaving room between scoops for dough to rise and swell. Cover well and bake for 45 minutes.

This dish tastes best curled up on the couch, under a hand-knitted blanket, with a cat at your side and a good romance novel propped in front of you. At least, that's how I found myself spending Thursday evening. Mmm, mmm, good.

And now to admit a disaster: On Friday, inspired by my straight-from-great-grandma's-kitchen meal from the night before, I gathered ingredients for chocolate chip cookies and turned on the oven to preheat. I'd already sneaked a chocolate chip or two (actually, let's be honest here -- I'd eaten two handfuls by that point) when I smelled something funny. Something like . . . smoke. Like a great detective, I sleuthed that the scent came from my oven. Hmm, probably a few drippings from the delicious chicken n' dumplings the night before. A quick opening of the oven door would release the scent, right?

Here's where my tip of using a large enough sized pot to cook the chicken n' dumplings comes in handy. The night before, I'd been too lazy to climb a chair and pull down the large baking dish. Everthing seemed to fit in the smaller dish. Apparently not. I hadn't noticed, but my delicious dinner had bubbled over and left behind oodles of puddles all over the bottom of my oven. Billows of smoke escaped the oven. I am not exaggerating: these were billows of smoke. I'd never encountered such a cloud of smoke in all my years of cooking. I raced through the house, slamming bedroom doors shut before the cloud of smoke could reach the nether regions and, choking and gasping for breath, assessed the scene. Nope, no cookies that night. I grabbed the dog and went for a walk around the neighborhood. By the time I returned, the smoke had dissapated, but not the scent.

A day later, my house still smells like an ashtray, all because I was too lazy to clamber up to the top shelf to get the right sized dish. So yes, do heed my words of wisdom and make sure you use the correct size dish for this comforting, cold weather meal.

Scrapbooking and Relaxing

Life has this irritating habit of making one come undone. Frazzled. Frayed. Here are my ways to relax:



1. Read.
Pro: What's not to love about reading????
Con: What? There are no cons with reading!



2. Bake something yummy.
Pro: That delicious scent of freshly baked goods wafting through my kitchen.
Con: Calories. Carbs. Butter.



3. Gardening.
Pro: Delicious vegetables to eat, or lovely flowers on my table.
Con: Backache and frustration because I really don't know what I'm doing!



4. Scrapbooking.
Pro: Patterned paper, ribbons, bright colors, total immersion in own little creative world
Con: Too many hours and dollars spent in the local scrapbook stores.



After being on the go for too many days in a row, yesterday I'd decided to give myself a bit of a break. I sat on my back deck for an hour with a cup of coffee and started in on Susan Wigg's The Ocean Between Us (wonderful author, BTW), then baked three loaves of bread. The scent emanating from my kitchen smelled like heaven. I hauled out the old forsythia branch trimmings from their messy little pile in the back of the yard. And I finished a scrapbook layout, called One Great Guy. I'm not sure which Great Guy in my life I'll select to have his photos included in the layout, but I loved the brown and blues of the DCWV patterned paper. The flowers are spiky enough to be used for a layout for a guy, and when paired with the Urban Lily stripes and polka dots, the overall layout had a distinct male feel. I added a brown grosgrain ribbon bow with a brown polka dotted organdy sheer ribbon overlay. Oh, and I love, love love my Cricut for making titles!



And yes, I did go to bed thoroughly relaxed after a day of indulging. A good book, tidy garden, lovely scrapbook layout, plus that last piece of bread all slathered heavily with butter and homemade strawberry jam helped me fall sound asleep the moment my head hit my pillow. Ahhh . . .

ONCE AN OBSESSION released

On Monday, September 15, a fabulous thing happened: my book, ONCE AN OBSESSION, released exclusively through the Home Shopping Network.

With the weight of her hometown's financial success slung heavily over her shoulders, beautiful and brainy Tess Hawthorne is faced with a prime opportunity: hire Sam Mercer, noted film director, to help her save the Tulleville Cinematic Festival. Tess and Sam go way back--her best friend is his little sister, his best friend is her older brother. Sam wants to move back from Hollywood to the quaint small town of Tulleville to be closer to his sister, so being offered the job of the director for the Festival is like the answer to his dreams. Easy, breezy, right?

Except gorgeous Sam's been the feature of all Tess's dreams since she was a kid, and the last time he was in town, she'd made certain he knew of her age-old crush. At the time, Sam was floored by Tess's announcement but gave in to passion anyway, making clear to Tess that he'll never engage in a relationship: that's just not him.

Now, in order to make this business arrangement work, Sam and Tess vow to put their one night of tangled bedsheets behind them. Passion and desire, however, no matter how emphatically pushed away, have a habit of flaming into love. When passion flares again, Sam is convinced his obsession will bring only pain. This time, it's up to Tess to prove him wrong before their chance at love passes them by.

Click HERE to take you to the ordering page at HSN. There are still a few copies available, but once they're gone, that's it!