Chicks and Dumplins'

Chicken and Dumplings has got to be one of the yahoo's favorites (well, the girl yahoos, anyway!) It's a perfect crock pot meal for our family on the go!

Here's what it takes:

Start by spraying the crock pot with some non-stick spray, and plop in a few chicken breasts - since I always have a mega-sized bag of these in the freezer, this a fantastic meal to make with them - and they can go in frozen!

Toss in some chopped onions....

and a couple of cans of soup in any combination of Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Chicken and Cream of Celery...


You can also add some seasonings here - poultry seasoning mixes, salt, pepper, oregano, sage, thyme, garlic...whatever floats your boat!

Let this cook for a few hours (around 4 or so) on high...and it will start to look something like this...


Now it's time to shred the chicken...this will work wonderfully with just a few forks - plant them into the chicken and pull....and when you're done (and really, this should not take more than a few minutes...your chicken is going to be so tender and juicy!) add a bag of frozen veggies and mix them in.

Now comes some personal preferences...I've made this several ways....adding nothing...adding water...or adding chicken stock/broth. Add about one soup can's worth or so...the veggies will add some liquid to the mix, so the more liquid you add, the soupier your meal will be.


And the easiest dumplings every made - refridgerated biscuits! Just pop open a can and cut each one up into small chunks and just drop them right on top of your mixture. One can of "Grands" sized biscuits or two cans of the smaller ones will do the trick.

Let these cook, covered for a bit (at least an hour or so). Notice how nicely they've gone all "Ball Park Frank" on you and 'plumped while you cooked 'em'!

If you want dumplings that are more 'noodle-like', you can go back and stir them into the mixture after they've plumped a little bit. If you like them more like biscuits, simply let them continue to cook on top, and they'll eventually end up with a nice, brown baked look to them.


After a grand total cooking time of about 6 hours - 4 before adding veggies and dumplings, and 2 after...you're delicious Chicken and Dumplings are ready to eat!

Something smells fishy....

Mexican dishes have always been popular with the yahoos...and so, we tried adding a new one to the rotation - a bit healthier and definitely popular!

FISH TACOS

Fish tacos are incredibly fast to make, healthy, and YUMMY! I usually start by getting my accompaniements all set first, so that some flavors in the sauce have time to 'meld' and because the fish takes no time at all to cook, I leave that for last!

So first, I typically mix up a 'custom' sour cream sauce that works wonderfully with these tacos:

2 tablespoons of sour cream

2 tables spoons of mayo

about 2 teaspoons of lime juice

and usually a dash of Frank's Red Hot Sauce

Mix and let sit in the fridge while you get the rest ready.

I prefer to eat these tacos with some fresh salsa and avocado...the kids typically drown them in the 'usual' toppings, which includes onions, cheese, Chi Chis salsa and sour cream. I buy the salsa in the deli section at our 'supermarket' and some avocados to slice up...this can be tricky, as our store doesn't always have that perfectly ripe avocado. And if you don't use avocado a lot (which we seem to) I've included how I slice them up for my tacos.

Slice in half and twist to release. Then I use the largest knife in my drawer and whack it into the pit....

and give it a little turn...

this releases the pit. Now, if the avocado is just the right amount of ripeness, it's easy to just peel off the skin. Sometimes I've used a vegetable peeler as well. If the avocado is too ripe, you're going to end up with a pile of mush when attempted this...so tread carefully in your avocado picking...

Once it's peeled, just slice the halves for inclusion on the yummy taco!

Next comes the fish...I typically use Mahi Mahi...I have used tilapia before, and while the flavor was fine (since tilapia has almost no flavor...), the consistency was very different - it's a much 'flakier' fish, and doesn't hold up well in chunks like the Mahi Mahi does. You can use cod, orange roughy, red snapper....you know....fish....

Cut the fish into cubes to prep it for your pan.

Now, on to the pan....some olive oil....

Fresh garlic (with my trusty Pampered Chef Garlic Press)

and about a couple tablespoons of lime juice....

Saute this for a bit and then add your fish....

It's only going to take 6 - 8 minutes for the fish to finish, as both the heat and the lime juice cook it up nicely....and you can add some fresh ground pepper to boot....

Now it's time to assemble your taco - I 'smear' some of the sour cream sauce into my tortilla...

followed by the fish, avocado and salsa....and voila! YUMM!!

We typically have a lettuce salad with this meal as well - and this dressing makes a wonderful accompaniment - ENJOY!

It's not easy being green!

Remember this monochromatic meal???

Well, what better day for another monochrome meal than St. Patrick's Day!??! And while the leprechauns did not turn our milk green, we did have a 'green' meal! And, it's made from things you've read about here!

First came the main dish - usually this is Spinach & Mushroom Ravioli - but today it was Whole Wheat Cheese Tortellini (store was out of ravioli....and since Druggy and I are on weight watchers, the whole wheat pasta was a better route anyway!)

And there are a plethora of green vegetables we could have eaten in our green meal...green beans, asparagus, broccoli...all are family favorites...but the most famous is the artichoke...so that's what we had!

and finally...we top it off with a salad...green, but also very colorful!

A great way to celebrate the holiday through food...speaking of which...we did that on Valentine's day, though um...the coloring wasn't quite as sucessful...

Orange (rather than pink eggs)...

Heart shaped cinnamon rolls...

and the kids' favorite....pink grits.

No choking here!

One of the kids new favorite dinnertime vegetables - artichokes!

Hard to imagine, but some nicely sauteed and steamed artichokes, dipped in some garlic butter, are now one of their favorite things!

So here's how I make them:

Cut the tops of the chokes and snip off any remaining 'pokies' on the leaves.


Now cut them in half and scoop out the 'fur' - this is relatively easy, but also not entirely necessary. I do it to avoid any unnecessary fur consumption later.

Melt some butter in a pan and add some fresh garlic. Heat enough to get the garlic infused into the butter and add the artichokes.

Saute for about 5 minutes on each side.

Add some water and cover and steam until artichokes are tender (15 - 20 minutes).

Melt some additional butter with garlic for dipping.

To eat, simply peel leaves off one by one and scrap out the small amount of 'meat' at the base of the leaf - this portion of the leaf can be dipped into the garlic butter (or mayo or a mustard sauce) before 'scrapping'.

The kids love these, and even the youngest, at only 2 years old, knows how to scrape out the 'meat' without eating the rest of the leaf.

Here's the stack of discarded leaves from just my two older yahoos!

Enjoy!