Breakfast for dinner

I am not a morning person at all. Not even the tiniest piece of me likes early mornings. I do however, lover breakfast foods. Me getting up early enough to make breakfast before I leave to go some where almost never happens. I still want those breakfast foods so once a month or so, I like to make breakfast for dinner.

I grew up with a Dad that worked swing shift and if he had worked all night and slept all day, he wanted to eat breakfast. Mom had several breakfast meals she would rotate through and we would have breakfast the week he was on midnights each month.  I love to cook, and I am told I am good at it, but my Mom makes the best biscuits!! Hands down she wins that contest. I actually like her gravy a little better than my own too!

Iced In...Comfort Foods

Do you have those foods that you make that immediately take you somewhere else? There are so many things that I make on a regular basis that remind me of the person that taught me to make the dish. My life has been blessed with many people that shared their love of cooking with me.

Pancakes and omelettes remind me of cooking with my Dad.

Gravy and biscuits, pasta salad, peanut butter cookies and vegetable soup take my back to my Mom's kitchen.

Fried Cornbread brings back my Mamaw.

Scrambled Eggs remind me of my cousin Iris and the summer she visited us for a while.

Dumplings remind me of my Granny and my great grandmother.

Several cakes I make, remind me of my friend Yvonne.

Jalapeno cornbread brings to mind my friend Allyson.

Pat taught me to make homemade pizza.

Some of these people are no longer here with me in this life, and several more are separated by many miles. Cooking is something that makes me happy and complete and I am so grateful for those that shared their skills and recipes with me.

But this post is about the picture above.

I ate a lot of meals of my Granny's house and she made so many good foods. My absolute favorite time to eat at her house was on Thursday nights. You see Friday was grocery day so on Thursday nights she would pull out all of the left overs and make a meal out of them. It was like a feast with the variety of foods! Some dishes only had a few spoons left, but it was still good. One of the favorites of mine was this simple dish of jumbo elbow macaroni and a jar of home canned tomatoes. 

So simple, just two ingredients.

When I made it in my kitchen last night I was immediately transported back, to me ten years old, in my Granny's kitchen. 

The reality though, my kitchen is about 175 miles from her kitchen, Granny lives in the world of her memories as Alzheimer's disease takes her present knowledge and leftover night at her house is a thing of the distant past. But last night my memories took me back there.

And now? There is a little girl in my life, that I am teaching to cook from my memories. And she knows that while cooking can be learned from a book or the internet, that there are many, many more things that can be learned by one person, passed on to another and then another connecting hearts across miles and generations.

Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and Dumplings happen to be one of my favorite foods and top the list as far as comfort foods go. Growing up in the south, I think almost every one has their own version of them too. My version is the way that my Grandmother always made them. She really didn't make them all that often, just at holidays, but they were really something to look forward too. No holiday meal was complete without her dumplings. That is one of the traditions I have brought to my in-laws' get togethers too.

Now Granny always made hers with the turkey that  would be baked on a holiday. I have adapted my recipe for chicken, everything else is still the way that she taught me.

The ingredients are simple; flour, Crisco, broth, milk, butter and cook shredded chicken.

This is one of those recipes that I just by feel, I don't really have exact measurements, but I start with about 2 cups of all purpose flour and roughly 1/2 cup of the Crisco.

Before I start the dumplings, I prepare my pot by adding a couple of quarts of chicken broth, a cup or so of milk and a stick of butter. 

Using a fork, you are going to work the Crisco into the flour until the flour is crumbly. At this point you will add cold water to the flour mixture, about 6-8 tablespoons. You will mix in the water until a dough forms. You can add a little more water,a tablespoon at a time if needed or if it gets too sticky, you can add a little more flour.

Once your dough is formed, you will put the dough onto a floured work surface. I usually divide the dough in half because that is what fits on my mat. You only want to knead the dough a  few times, if you overwork it, you will have tough dumplings.

Now here is where dumpling enthusiasts part ways...some prefer the thick dumplings, but we like them really thin. I will roll out the dough as thin as I can get it and then cut it into strips. 

Making sure that your broth mixture is at a soft boil and then gently drop in the strips of dumplings. Cook for several minutes until dumplings are done. Add in the chicken and stir gently.

And then you end up with a bowl of absolute deliciousness. As a kid nothing beat the day after Thanksgiving when we had dumplings to eat for breakfast. I have to divide the leftovers here at home, to make sure the other person doesn't eat them all!