I Make Baking Powder and Amaze Bruce

I took another stab at chicken and dumplings tonight because I had just made some chicken soup. The soupier version is what my significant other was after so I tried again. I use a rotisserie chicken to make soup. Cover and simmer for 2 hrs with 1 bay leaf, half an onion, carrots and celery. Drain and pick off the chicken bits, set aside. After the broth has cooled in the refrigerator the fat is easy to take off.

Usually I cheat with the broth and add some Better than Boullion, but there was none to be had. Simmering the broth for about a half an hour concentrated the flavors. I sauteed some onion and carrots and added them to the broth along with a teaspon of thyme. Now for The Dumplings: (Melinda Lee's recipe)
1 cup, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon, baking powder
1 teaspoon, coarse salt
1 tablespoon, chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon, finely chopped fresh chives or minced scallion greens scant
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 large egg at room temperature
6 to 8 tablespoons, whole milk at room temperature
2 tablespoons, unsalted butter melted and cooled

I had no baking powder! Plenty of parsely this time, but no baking powder. I remembered that baking powder can be made with cream of tartar. How many people actually have cream of tartar in their pantries I don't know. I don't know why I did but it saved the day.

Here's the recipe:
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cornstarch.

My significant other said the chicken and dumplings were very good, "better than cowlips!" (He was watching Amazing Race at the time.) I emerge victorious.

Green Split Pea Soup with Ham

I'm the first to admit that pea soup is not very photogenic so I took a picture of ingredients. My significant other is not the only one I know that won't touch the finished product with a ten foot pole. I have a great recipe and my dad and I enjoy it for weeknight dinners.

Andersen's split pea soup is famous in these parts. Billboards along 101 on the way to Buelleton feature a cartoon of two chefs, Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee trying to split a pea with a mallet and chisel, or stirring a huge pot of soup. I finally tried the famous soup a while back. What a disappointment! Their recipe is almost identical to mine but it didn't include the ham. It even needed salt. My recipe is much better.

Here's the recipe:
2 cups of dried green split peas
1 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf
1 quart water
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 cup chopped water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 ham bone (HoneyBaked if possible)
1/2 cup diced carrots
salt & pepper
Put everything into a crock pot on high for 1 hour, turn it down and cook 4-5 hours or longer.
Take out the ham bone then spoon the liquid off the top and strain any fat. Add the strained broth back to the rest of the soup. Use a wand blender if you like the soup smooth. Add any ham bits to the soup and salt and pepper to taste.

This can also be made on the stove top. Simmer covered 2 1/2 to 3 hours

Comfort Food on a Rainy Sunday

Last Sunday there was an Oktoberfest celebration on a nearby farm and we were all set for bratwurst and beer when it started to rain. OK, change of plans. What do you cook on a rainy Sunday but chicken and dumplings? I must say, although my mother was a great cook, this was not part of her repertoire. My SO's mother had made it though so I got a thumbs up from him. He likes simple cooking but I usually have a hard time getting it right the first time. I felt confident in my dumpling making ability, now being on speaking terms with biscuits and scones. Melinda Lee spoke in glowing terms about a chicken and dumplings recipe I used that and made some adaptations to make allowances for what I had on hand. I didn't want to go out in the horrendous occasional drizzle after all! I used frozen chicken breasts, cut into quarters, instead of the whole pieces the recipe calls for, and left out parsley,since I didn't have any. The final product didn't come out very photogenic so I'm posting one that looks better on my blog. Note to self - add the blasted parsley and maybe a photo of the dish would be blog-worthy.

Melinda Lee's recipe comes out to be more of a chicken dish with sauce and dumplings. I doubled the amount of chicken stock after the initial cooking to make it soupier and cooked the dumplings on top of the chicken and stock. After the dumplings were finished cooking I followed Melinda's recipe and finished the sauce with the cream and eggs. I liked the creaminess of the sauce and the large pieces of chicken. The review on the dish was "More dumplings, less chicken." Bruce remembers it as a soup covered with the dumplings. There will be another rainy Sunday to get a little closer to the mark.

Splendiforous and Spectacular

No corners were cut for Deb's tea. Every surface was adorned. Tiny teacups were wrapped in cellophane and sat at each person's place as favors.

Tea sandwiches were set out and guests arrived ready to enjoy the get-together. One guest brought hats that tempted even the most reluctant to try one on for at least one picture. My sister and I wore hats our mother had worn in the 50's. Everyone seemed to get into the spirit.

Deb started the tea with a toast. Her hubby made up a delicious beverage and I managed to snag the recipe:

1 pint vanilla yogurt
1 pint raspberry sorbet
2 shots triple sec

Half fill a blender with champagne (they used Frexinet) and ice. The amount of ice depends on how slushy you want the drink. Add a scoop each of sorbet and yogurt and the triple sec. Blend on high. Pour into champagne flutes and garnish with mint leaves and a raspberry.

Tiny mushroom pastries, carmelized onion feta cheese bites and the
savories I had made were served hot along with the sandwiches.

The next course was the scones, hot out of the oven. They were served with Devonshire cream, lemon curd and jam. One guest brought marmalde butter which was delicious on the scones. Sometimes a scone is just a lemon curd delivery vehicle but I think the Martha Stewart's Blueberry Scone recipe came out lighter than a lot of scones I've had and were good by themselves.

Finally we brought out all the desserts. The miniture lemon cakes came out cute. Maybe they were a little too big for one serving but they were basically the size of a cupcake. The little strawberry cakes were pretty on the table but a little too sweet. I made sure to add enough butter to the crust for the Key Lime tarts so they held together for once.

I think Deb was happy with the overall impression the desserts made.Everyone had a wonderful time and no one left hungry!

A Fantabulous Tea

Creating tiny tidbits and nuggets for Deb's upcoming tea had my sister and I zipping around the kitchen in a creative frenzy. We had the best time playing. Here's what we made:

Savories (Artichoke Cheese and Pesto Cheese)
Chicken Salad in Cream Puff Shells
Bluberry Scones
Golden Almond Scones
Miniature Bete Noir
Strawberry Mini Cupcakes (with jam chamber!)
Key Lime Tartlets (the tangy version)
Lemon mini cakes

Most everything was from a tried and true recipe but after extensive testing a spinach filling for puff pastry savories and coming up with a really delicious recipe it was determined that it was not a good thing to even think about right now so I wound up with an artichoke and cheese and a pesto and cheese substitute. It was OK but neither of them really filled out the puff, not enough to it. Maybe I'll try adding an egg to the mixture next time and see if that helps add substance. Washing off the marinade from the artichokes, or using plain artichoke hearts, might also help allow more artichokes to be added to the mixture.

The pate choux for the chicken salad came out fine. I had used Alton Brown's recipe for an earlier tea and they fell flat! Trying to resuscitate them was useless. After consulting my Good Houskeeping recipe it seemed like either the time was wrong on Alton's (how can that be?) or I did something wrong. I cooked them for 30 minutes at 400 degrees and they puffed and stayed that way. Alton says to pipe them immediately and, as you can see from the picture, they are a bit flabby at first but stood up better after about a 10 minute rest before piping. The chicken salad was an old secret recipe - plain ol' chicken salad with a dollop of the ever elusive mango chutney.

The scones were a hit. I've learned through my biscuit adventures to handle with care. I used Martha Stewart's Blueberry Scone recipe, but I halved the amount of blueberries and considered myself lucky to get the fresh blueberries I needed.
My sis is a wiz with a pastry bag and created the snazziest decoration for cakes. Detail is her thing. She decorated the little chocolate cakes with tiny, itty bitty teapots and teacups and the mini pink cupcakes were festooned with little pink flowers. They were cute but more trouble than they were worth. The jam chamber alone took forever.

Miniature versions of the lemon cake I made for Deb earlier this summer were the the center piece for the desserts. Cooking with my sister is always fun. It's great to see what she comes up with.