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.