Pi

I made chicken and dumplings today. Well, I made it in the sense that I was responsible for gathering all the ingredients and placing them in a cooking vessel.

I discussed previously how I take help where I can get it these days. I used to boil a whole chicken with onions, celery, salt and pepper until the chicken was done. Then I would strain the whole thing into another pot and let the chicken cool until I could remove it from the bones without losing my fingerprints. Meanwhile I would mix the dumplings using a recipe I got from Mary Jane, who got it from her mother--- sift the flour and salt; cut the shortening in; add the milk; mix; knead briefly; roll thin and cut into the desired squares. Then bring the broth to a boil, drop the dumplings in and let them cook until done. Then add the chicken back in and dish it up. Delicious!

Now, since the grocery store does such an outstanding job of roasting chickens, I buy their product and maybe serve the drumsticks to Wayne for the first chicken meal. A day or two later I empty a large can of chicken broth into a big pot. I usually add 4-6 more cups of water and some flavor cubes...chicken, chipotle, onion...and bring that to a boil. I open the freezer and get out my package of Mary B's frozen dumplings and lay the strips out to thaw enough to be able to cut them easily with a pizza cutter. I cut each strip into about 16 squares which are approximately 5/8" X 5/8". After cooking they will be slightly over 1" square...bite-sized. Once the broth is boiling and I've stirred all the little dumplings in, I reduce the heat to low, cover and cook about 45 minutes. While they are simmering, I take the remains of the roasted chicken from it's little plastic casket, remove the skin, and cut up whatever is left of the breast. Usually, that's enough meat. I scoop the jellied broth from the bottom of the casket and try to make sure none of the hardened fat adheres to it. That jellied broth goes into the pot the next time I take the lid off. Once the dumplings are done, you turn it off, add the chicken, and dish it up. Delicious!

I'm not sure I save a whole lot of time with the dumplings, but I do save the hassle of measuring, mixing and rolling. On the downside, I don't have any good dumpling dough to eat. Today's broth seemed pretty salty. I never add salt when using chicken broth and bouillon cubes, so I probably should have added only one chicken bouillon cube instead of two. To try and remedy that, I peeled and cut two new potatoes into large pieces and dropped them into the broth. I also added large pieces of celery. I had no intention of eating the potatoes or celery...I was only using them to absorb salty flavor. I also cut up a couple of carrots (which I don't usually put in chicken and dumplings) and added them. When all was ready, I did fish out the potatoes and celery but left the carrots in.

Now, here comes the "pi" part. After it had cooled enough, I got out a large squarish plastic container to put it into. I looked at the level in my round pot and wondered if it would fit in the plastic container. Immediately, I thought of using math to figure this out and turned to get the calculator out of the drawer. As I took a step, I reviewed the value of pi. With my next step I realized I couldn't recite it past 3. Then I started laughing because I remembered (only) the punchline of a joke about pi. The punchline goes, "Pi are round, cornbread are square." Then I decided that I'd throw caution to the wind and just hope it fit...which it did.

I have looked it up and can now tell anyone who has forgotten that pi= 3.14159...........on and on. What I would have done with that information if I had remembered it in the kitchen is anybody's guess. But, I'm pretty sure it would have involved finding a ruler.

Christmas Cards

Photo Christmas cards seemed to be the rage this year. I don't mean to sound like I've never seen them before. I think only 4 or 5 of the cards we received this year were not photo cards. And by the way, let me take this opportunity to apologize for not getting any cards out this year...again. It's probably been 20 or 25 years since I sent any. I can't believe people are still thoughtful enough to send them to us.

I'm thinking that maybe I should scan all of the photo cards into the computer and make a photo book. Makes much more sense to do it that way rather than just pasting them into a small scrapbook, doesn't it? But, I love the photo books. So far I've made two of them. Really, wouldn't that be cool to have a new book every year, showing the changes in the families. Great idea! I'm full of them. Just never seem to execute them.

Save the Date!

The wedding date is set! Robin and Chad will be married at St. Philip Catholic Church on September 12, 2009.

September 12 was my mom's birthday...born in California in 1923.
September 12 is also Cullen Braden's birthday...born in Texas in 2002. Cullen is my niece Tracy's oldest child.

And now it will be Robin and Chad's wedding date. Sweet.

Holiday meals

It was another delicious meal...Carolyn heated the ham and made cornbread; Wendy brought deviled eggs, apple pie and ice cream; and I made the potato salad and black-eyed peas. Robin and Chad were still with friends, so they didn't join us at Carolyn's on New Year's Day.

As I mentioned, Carolyn heated the ham. We have had four big, special dinners in the last six weeks, but only actually cooked the meat at the Family Christmas early in December. After all these years of having turkey and dressing at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I cried "uncle!" Wendy didn't want to miss out on my dressing, so it was decided that the Thanksgiving meal would be traditional and we would have something else on Christmas.

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving on the Sunday before the actual holiday. That way, we could all be together and have the meal we all love. Well, nobody really loves the turkey, but we love everything that goes with it. I bought a (pricey) pre-cooked, herb-roasted turkey from Prasek's that only required reheating. So, no getting up at 6 AM to get the bird in the oven. Yay! Our menu consists of turkey and dressing, gravy, noodles with croutons, our family German-style slaw, sweet potatoes in some form (currently a wonderful recipe that Carolyn makes), green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, and usually pecan pie and a super good layered pudding dessert...all washed down with plenty of iced tea...or in my case, wine. We usually eat at noon, but this year we had our meal in the evening. This year, instead of the two usual desserts Robin made a Pecan Pie Truffle that was really good.

Possibly, I'm getting older...ya think?...because I just don't believe preparing all that food is much fun any more. I used to buy chickens to boil for stock for the dressing, but now I just use canned chicken broth. I quadruple the recipe so that everyone has plenty of dressing to take home. Years ago I would make homemade noodles, but not any more. Now I buy two large packages of noodles, again so there will be plenty to take home. I still make homemade croutons to top the noodles. I used to make fresh green beans, but now we buy a giant can of green beans and at least a couple of cans of Margaret Holmes Green Beans with Vidalia Onions to add to it. The "pot likker" in the Margaret Holmes beans is so good...it's all the flavoring the giant can of green beans needs. If we have deviled eggs, instead of boiling eggs as I used to do, I buy a pouch of perfectly done, peeled hard-cooked eggs and 1/2 the work is done. I take all the help I can get with most of my cooking these days. For example, Marie Callendar pies and cobblers are as good as I would make and all I have to do is pop them in the oven!

Even with the shortcuts, however, this meal is still a giant pain in the heinie to do. Thank goodness we don't have Thanksgiving every month!

This Christmas we had a pre-cooked prime rib that we purchased from Target, of all places! It was wonderful. Very tasty! It was much less labor intensive than the usual turkey and dressing...so I was able to enjoy the gift exchanges fully, instead of running back and forth to the kitchen. We also had fresh asparagus, hashed brown potato casserole, horseradish sauce, green salad, rolls and two pecan pies.

Now the dieting begins. But I have to wait almost a week to start. Friday is my preferred day for weighing in. Makes perfect sense to weigh in before the weekend. You can mess up a little and then you have all week to bring yourself back in line. Simple!

As usual, I'm not in any of these photos. That's okay, I'm much cuter in person!

I had to go back in and change the title of this post. It was titled, "Another New Year." When I looked at it today, it made no sense...