Country Classic - Creamed Chicken over Buttermilk Biscuits

This is a big post - bear with the length.  

My grandma was an *amazing* country cook.  For eons, every Sunday, we'd all pile into her sunflower yellow little mobile home's kitchen/dining room and after she'd get back from church, lunch was served.  We're not talking like a nice little old brunch either...we're talkin' the full fixin's.  Turkey, green beans w/ ham, dumplings, homemade rolls, pies of all sorts - the list could go on and on.  That woman lived to feed her kids and grandkids!  There was no such thing as a small portion and if you left the table hungry, it was your own fault for not going back for thirds or fourths.  Such was Sundays at my grandma's house.  She raised 4 very big boys and the woman lived in the kitchen.  She was phenomenal to watch too.  Every recipe was in her head and heart - there was never a recipe book in sight.  She made so many amazing meals and while holidays were her shining moments that will forever live on in everyone's minds in the family, I liked when she did smaller meals, like when I'd stop by unannounced just to visit and she'd make dinner for just us.  One of those meals was a creamed chicken over biscuits that just made my mouth water.  Tender pulled chicken in a creamy gravy over hot, buttered homemade biscuits.  There was, and likely will never be, any that compare to hers but I've kinda come to a happy place where I like mine fairly much as I did hers.  Makes me think of her...alot.

Its My Cake & I'll Cry if I Want To...

Some things I learned today...

a)  arthritic hands SUX for decorating a cake with a squeeze type icing bag  

b)  when using gel coloring, start with the smallest dot, not a spoonful or else your sky blue goes neon navy

c)  if you nearly choke to death coughing on dry crumbs, that's not a good sign

d)  if your mouth feels greasy after you eat the icing, its prolly not a keeper recipe (gross)

e)  I really, really need to take a Wilton decorating class in immediate future

and finally...

f)  it sucks to make your own birthday cake but if I left it to my hubby, I'd be eating a Twinkie or Ho Ho with a candle in it.

Easy Wonton Soup

Hubs is quite the Japanese food fanatic.  In New York, we had the pleasure of eating at Yobo, which served the best dim sum I have ever had in my life and had some of the most beautifully prepared sushi I have ever seen.  Everything about Yobo made you want to just linger.  It had dark wood, was dimly lit, had a fountain and pond in the middle of the restaurant and everything was geared to make you feel like you welcome to stay just a little longer...they served a fabulous spicy, hot tea at the end of the meal as if just beckoning you to kick back and relax a little longer and sip your mug of hot, steaming tea.  Nothing was rushed or hurried - it was just perfection.  Our last meal from New York was at Yobo, in fact.  I miss the Hudson Valley more and more every day.  Not their 8 feet of snow at the moment, but you know what I'm getting at.  :)

Terrific Butter Dip Biscuits

Last week since Jon and I couldn't decide exactly what we wanted for our menu, we decided to try something different.  We picked ALL new stuff we'd never had before.  Every meal we ate was brand new to us.  That ended up being a good and a bad thing.  Good because I found some really lovely new dishes (as in Jenna's Spicy Sweet Asian Beef) that renewed my faith choosing new recipes but then bad as I wasted ample time and money on others as they went down my garbage disposal from "big name bloggers" which I thought would be better than they were.  *cough* 

Spicy Sweet Asian Beef

Ever come across a recipe that you think will be just "ho hum" but you want to try something different so you make you and then...BOOM!  Sparklers go off, a marching band trumps through your kitchen and the heavens open up and a beam of glorious light sprays across your stove?  Yeah...I had that last night when I made this recipe from Jennalaughs.com  

I mean, just LOOK at that picture for crying out loud!  The rich, spicy, sweet beefy sauce just beckons to me to remake it tomorrow.  I could, in all seriousness, eat this once a day & not ever get bored.

Luxurious Brunch Quiche

Yesterday was a very lazy day for me.  I've nearly recovered from my flu/infection bout and I almost have my full appetite back so I was really craving something filling but comforting, yet still easy on my sensitive belly.  I stood there in front of my fridge just staring, wondering what I could make.  I had eggs, cream and a stump of Gruyere leftover.  QUICHE!  Oh yeah...I could deal with some creamy, fluffy cheesed up eggs.   

German Knoephla Dumpling Soup

The perfect bite with a bit of everything!

As a kid, do you remember those cheapy frozen chicken pot pies that had the perfectly cut cubes of potato and carrots in them?  Came in a red box?  Growing up, they were one of my most favorite lunches on the weekend or as a snack.  For nostalgia's sake, I would love to sneak one into my grocery cart if I could pretend to forget what chemically is all in those pot pies just for the sake of tasting that delicious chicken gravy that's inside them.  That was the best part for me!  And I couldn't be happier when I discovered this recipe nearly perfectly mimics the taste of that lovely chicken gravy.  *glee*

I have seen knoephla soup on various sites recently and I always kept it in the back of my head to try.  I even marked it into my favorites folder and then couldn't find it a week later when I wanted to make it. There seems to be some debate on the origins of this soup, whether it be Russian or German.  Knoephla, I've come to learn, is sorta kinda German for "little knob".  Traditional knoephla soup is a thick chicken and potato stoup (to borrow from Rachel Ray's terminology) and is popular up north in the Dakotas and Minnesota areas thanks to some emigrants way back when.  My version here is a mix between several I found on the web - including Angel in the Kitchen and Taste of Home and one or two others.  Each one seemed just a tad different but kept hold of that chicken and potato base.  (and I couldn't find frozen little dumplings at my store...they only had flat dumpling strips which worked but just needed broken up into smaller pieces before simmering.  You could totally make homemade dumplings but I'm sick still and not up to the extra effort.)

Oatmeal Choco-Toffee Muffins & the Georgia Snowstorm

Let me start by saying, I am from the North.  I was born and grew up in Ohio which gets a good amount of snow and ice thanks to the Great Lakes.  I also spent last winter in West Point Military Academy in the Hudson Valley area of New York which gets MOUNTAINS of snow.  We are currently at Ft. Benning, Georgia and last night they called for a snow storm which prompted all kinds of shut downs from schools, offices, and onwards.  You'd think it was a state wide emergency here in our area.  Everyone on the base yesterday was shopping and stocking up.  Every aisle was bare boned from frozen pizzas to ramen noodles, there was nary a box or bag in sight.  We just laughed because if it even RAINS too hard down here, people wig out, can't drive and stay home like shut ins during a hurricane.  But this...lol...was our "BIG" Georgia snowstorm.

Decadent Valrhona Chocolate & Peppermint Candy Ice Cream

Were you left with copious amounts of peppermint candy canes?  I was...and I didn't want to toss them.  Its candy!  You can't pitch perfectly good candy!  I had considered making brownies and putting them on top of a creamy buttercream frosting but blah.  Everyone has done that.  Nah!  I made ice cream.  But not your normal run of the mill ice cream.  Boooooring!  I upped the ante BIG time and made a super zippy pink peppermint ice cream studded with dark chocolate Valrhona pearls.


A few weeks ago I spotted these Valrhona pearls sold bulk at my market.  They are small pellets of crunchy biscuit (think almost a shortbread or the middle of a Twix bar for comparison) covered in layers of shiny dark chocolate.  I didn't know what I'd exactly DO with them but I wanted them.  So they sat taunting me for near two weeks as I pondered what to do with them.  Putting them in a cookie seemed kinda redundant...in a brownie they would just get lost and not noticed....but ice cream seemed the perfect vehicle for my new chocolatey pearls of delight.  And in this recipe in particular they would just be awesome possum.  You'd get the crispy mint from the candy canes, the creamy custard ice cream base and then BOOM!  A crunchy chocolatey bite in every spoonful.  It was madness I tell you!  Madness!