My Trey Man's Birthday

He wanted Red Lobster, but we don't have one locally. He settled for lobster cooked at home. He also wanted corn on the cob and a fruit salad. He's a funny little 7 year old. Cute too.

This post is for my brother. He likes to be mean to me on occasion. My brother and his family live in KY, near my parents. WAY too many times, I have called in the evening to talk to my Mom, and find that my brother is there eating dinner with them. Usually it's lobster.

Not really, but that's what he ALWAYS tells me. He's mean like that.

Well guess what Jay???

We really DID have lobster.

Do ya recognize any of these people??? Hey Jay, do they look like your parents? Your neice and your nephew???

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Chicken and Dumplings

Mmmmmmmmm

Can you say comfort food? This is truly a big bowl of happiness.

This is what it looked like outside of my window yesterday. Yuck!!! It was so cold and rainy, I just felt like I really needed some comfort food. I was tempted to make chicken noodle soup, but I didn't want to go to the store for noodles. In fact, I didn't want to get out of the house at all. I got out my Paula Deen cookbook, because lets face it, who better to turn to for comfort food recipes. This is the recipe I found. I doubled it, because I pretty much have to double every recipe I make. We eat A LOT.
The first thing I did was put this little guy in a sink full of warm water and let him soak. This allowed me to be able to chop without my legs being tugged on.



Then I put 1 whole chicken into a big stock pot and covered it with water. There is really NO way to make this picture look pretty. Sorry. My chicken was a little over 5 pounds.



Next, I gathered up some salt, pepper, garlic powder, bay leaves, onions, carrots and celery.

I chopped up 5 celery stalks leaves and all. I love the flavor the leaves add to the broth.

I dumped them in the pot with the chicken.

I chopped up 5 carrots, like this.

Then I chopped up 2 onions.

I threw the onions and carrots in the pot with the chicken and celery.

See???

I put about 1 tablespoon of salt, 6 shakes of the garlic powder, and 30 turns of the pepper mill.

I added 4 bay leaves.

Put the pot on the stove, turn the heat to high and put the lid on it.

Then just walk away.

I got my little guy out of the sink, put a diaper on him, fixed him a snack and turned on Yo Gabba Gabba for him. This bought me an extra 22 minutes to get as much done as I possibly could before the big kids came home from school.

I boiled my chicken for about 45 minutes. I pulled it out of the pot, and skimmed off all the yucky, foamy, brown stuff that was on top.

When the chicken was cool enough to handle, I pulled the meat off. I like big pieces of chicken with my dumplings.

I threw the chicken into the pot.

Put it back on the stove and return it to a boil.

Now........for the dumplings.

I realize that my bag of flour is all crumpled, and I should have straightened it up for the picture, but really? Maybe if Yo Gabba Gabba was an hour long I would have had time for that.

4 cups of flour and 1 1/2 cups of ice water.

Dump the flour into a bowl. Make a well in the center and slowly add the ice water, a little at a time. Mix with your hands. It will feel like really dry and tough and crumbly. That is OK. Keep adding water, a little at a time, and mixing, until it's all incorporated.

I don't have any photos of this, because the dough was all over my hands. I didn't want to ruin my camera. Shape your dough into a ball (I made 2 balls) and let it rest for a minute or two.

While your dough is resting add 1 can (I used a BIG can) cream of chicken soup. I realize this is a horrible picture, but who among us has never experienced the plop of dumping a can of cream of something soup out???? There is just no way to make it pretty.

Back to the dumplings.

Roll out your ball/balls of dough into so they are 1/8 inch thick. There is really no need trying to make it pretty. Just roll them on out.

See, mine aren't pretty at all.

Then cut them into strips about an inch wide.

Until they are all cut up. Since some of mine are long and some are short, I cut the long ones right down the middle. You could certainly cut them to whatever size you like.

Drop them into your boiling pot, one at a time.

Allow them to boil for a few minutes. They will float to the top when they are ready.

Serve them up and make people smile. People who just lost their first tooth.

Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmmmmmm

Here's the link to Paula's recipe.

http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/view2/chicken_dumplings/

No food again......just some pics to share.

I am a very bad food blogger. A good friend of mine in Alabama told me I would be a great blogger, but............I haven't proven that to be true yet. Bare with me, I might just be the next Pioneer Woman. Ya never know. In the meantime, I have more un-food things to tell you about. I've been cooking plenty, just not taking the time to photograph it all. I promise a food post soon. Some of y'all have seen these pics, some of you have not. The ones that haven't I hope you enjoy. I included a video at the end of this post.

It snowed two weeks ago. It hasn't snowed here in about 20 years. We ran straight outside the night it started snowing and started snapping pics. This is my favorite night time picture.

Here's my house. The palm trees look strange covered in snow. The good kind of strange of course.
This is Jackson and baby Wo-Wo. Her name is Rowan and Jackson is crazy about her. He has a baby doll that belongs to his sister that he has claimed. He calls her Wo Wo. He goes ny-night with the baby every night. It is very cute.

Kaylee girl. Trey was too cold to stay outside. He did save 4 snowballs in the freezer so he would never forget the snow. He played out in it the evening before.

Then...........just 1 week after the snow, it was about 65 degrees and we went to the BEACH!!!

Talk about srping fever. Trey had a ball chasing the seagulls. He just never could quite reach one. I think the seagulls were happy to see some humans.

Sweet Sissy and Jackson.

Crazy Kaylee. She just can't go to the beach without getting wet. Not just her feet either. I mean she has to dive in. Even if it is February 21st and the water is 47 degrees. She doesn't care.

Now, let me save you some of your precious time, and tell you to not waste your time clicking on the video below. It didn't upload correctly, and I can't figure out how to delete it. Great blogger, huh????? Sorry about that. I am sure you love me anyway.