Comfort Food

Chicken & Dumplings. I have mixed feelings about the way this turned out. The whole thing took 3 hours. I had to slow cook my chicken and vegetables with just salt and pepper to make a good broth. Although it looked and smelled great, I felt it lacked in strong flavors. Next time I will either use a different recipe or add a bit of chicken stock - like maybe 3 cups of water and 1 cup of stock, and throw in some other herbs.

Thickening it with Bisquick. I then dropped the bisquick dough on top of this once it was nice n' thick. It was suppose to cook 10 minutes with the lid on, and then another 10 minutes without the lid. The recipe said to not let the dough be submerged in the soup. How was that possible? The weight factor alone made that impossible. They didn't cook very well, and you had to spoon some of the dumpling off to the side. Most people would wonder why I just didn't cook it any longer. Well, the parts that were cooked would have then been overcooked and then we would be eating an odd type of soup. Plus, I just spent 3 hours on this dinner and this household is on a tight schedule, so I just didn't have time.

In the end, it wasn't bad, but just needed some tweeking, and maybe next time add an additional 30 minutes of cook time to be safe and ensure that the dumplings are cooked properly. I fell asleep reading my Fast Food cookbook by Chef Gordon Ramsay. I can't wait to start really cooking again, so many yummy things to try!