Chicken n Dumplins

My grandmother loves to cook. I remember when I was growing up, whenever we went over to her house for a visit she always had something boiling on the stove or baking in the oven. She had some interesting concoctions at times, but one of my favorites was always her chicken and dumplings. Thick and creamy, the kind that cooked on the stove for hours before it was finally ready. I can almost taste it just thinking about it!

However, as delectable as it was, it also scarred me for life (ok, so that may be a little dramatic, but it has left a serious impression). Because in spite of what I am sure were her best efforts, there were always chicken bones in it. And for those of you that know me well know that I have a problem dealing with bones. I just can't handle them. Chicken, human, any kind of bone just freaks me out.

That being said, I have always been afraid to try chicken and dumplings and restaurants and other people's homes for fear of finding those nasty little chicken bones that are a result of cooking a whole chicken to put into the chicken and dumplings.

Well, thank you Pinterest and BubbleCrumb for showing me the obvious. Boneless chicken breasts for chicken and dumplings! Plus it uses a crockpot. Yippie!

Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:
4-6 BONELESS skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons butter
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth
1 diced onion
1 tablespoon dried paisley
4 grands flaky refrigerator biscuits

Cooking Directions:
1. Place chicken, butter, soup, broth, onion and paisley in crockpot. Cook on high for 4-6 hours.

2.Break chicken into pieces (the chicken should just fall apart). Chop biscuits into pieces and add to crockpot and continue cooking 30 minutes or until done.

(photo credit: BubbleCrumb)

The results? Perfecto! Let's just say the hubs and I ate almost the entire crock pot full. I did, as usual, make a couple of minor changes. I used 6 chicken tenders and only had 1 can of cream of chicken soup on hand. Also instead of 4 flaky biscuits I used a small tube of 6 biscuits and flattened them out to get 9 pieces out of each biscuit. But it still worked out perfectly well. Thank you Pinterest!

Chicken Florentine and Cheddar Biscuits

Tonight was the first venture into unknown cooking territory. I originally found these recipes on Pinterest (my newest obsession. are you pinning?). The main dish: chicken florentine bowtie pasta, and the side: cheddar biscuits Red Lobster style.

Chicken Florentine Bowtie Pasta from pickypalate.com

(photo credit: http://picky-palate.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Chicken-Florentine-Bowtie-Pasta-text-539x700.jpg)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped white onion

1 clove minced garlic (I cheated here and used garlic powder)

4 cups baby spinach leaves

2 cups cooked shredded chicken

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 freshly ground black pepper

2 cups Philadelphia cooking cream (I couldn't find this at the store so I just used store brand heavy whipping cream)

1 pound bowtie pasta

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Cooking directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a 9x13in baking pan with non-stick baking spray.

2. Cook pasta according to package directions.

3. Cook oil in a dutch oven/large pot over medium heat. Add in onion and cook 5 minutes until tender. Stir in garlic for 1 minute. Add in spinach leaves and cook 2 minutes until wilted. Stir in chicken, salt and pepper. Slowly add in cream, stirring to combine.

4. Add pasta to mixture. (I also added a handful of cheese at this point).

5. Pour mixture into sprayed baking dish and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until cheese is slightly golden.

Makes 8 servings.

As you can see, I made a few adjustment. It was very tasty. The sauce wasn't very thick and the spinach helped me not feel too guilty eating only a pasta dish for supper.

This one is definitely going into the recipe box for future reference.

Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits from RasaMalaysia

(photo credit: http://rasamalaysia.com/uploaded_images/biscuits/biscuit.jpg)

Ingredients

2 cups Bisquick mix

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 melted butter

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried parsley

Cooking directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2. Mix Bisquick, milk, parsley and cheddar cheese into thick batter

3. Spoon the batter onto cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden

4. Melt butter and mix with garlic and drizzle over warm biscuits

Makes 12 servings (serving size = 1 biscuit)

These were delicious! Not exactly like the ones from Red Lobster, but they were quick, easy and cheap which is definitely the better thing in my opinion.

So overall tonight's adventure turned out scrumptious.

Newlywed: 1. Kitchen: 0.