Chicken and Dumplings

Everything I cook is comfort food. Among my favourites is chicken-and-dumplings. Really, this is the ultimate comfort food. A couple people have asked me for the recipe, and I told them I'd write down what I do next time I make it: it's not like I'm working from a real recipe here. Well... next time was yesterday; so I'm writing it down.

From Chicken and Dumplings

In rural North Carolina, people make "chicken and pastry," rather than "chicken and dumplings." What they refer to as "pastry" is a homemade sort of pasta made from flour, salt, and pepper. Ames makes it with her mother's recipe, but I've made it a couple times using the "Granny's Chicken and Pastry" recipe from Carolina Country. I've made some really good chicken and pastry with that recipe, but I've never been able to follow it exactly. The pastry dough in that recipe always comes out way too stiff.

But I admit I prefer softer dumplings to true Southern "slippery noodles," and so I've mucked about looking for a good way to make those. I've referred to Alton Brown's recipe from Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run, but I've never tried actually following it. My "recipe" is as follows:

Today I used a whole chicken, I generally just use chicken thighs:

• 1 chicken
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 quart water
• 1--2 quarts chicken broth

First saute the onions in a large pot. I like to cook them in bacon grease, but butter would work as well. Chop them fine, put them on to cook with plenty of salt and pepper (I never measure, I just use enough). When the onions are all transluscent, set them aside and put the chicken in the pot. I've done the chicken in the oven and on the stovetop: I'm not really sure which is better. Today I put a whole chicken in the pot, brushed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted it at 385F for an hour.

From Chicken and Dumplings

Once the chicken looked about done, I pulled it out of the oven and put it on the stovetop. I added the onions back to the chicken, put about a quart of water on it, and got it to a rolling boil for about 45 minutes. When the chicken was easily pulled apart with a fork, I removed it from the heat.

From Chicken and Dumplings

Now's the tricky part: we need to pull the chicken from the bones, and we need to make dumplings. So I generally take the chicken out of the pot and set it aside to cool. In the meantime, I get the dumplings going.

Dumplings:

• 2 Cups flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp shortening
• rice milk

That's actually pretty close to Alton's recipe.

From Chicken and Dumplings

I mix the dry ingredients in the mixer and hit them with the whip attachment to get them blended. Then I cut the shortening into the mixture. Finally, I pour a small amount of rice milk (chicken broth, milk, or water would work just as well) into it until I get a sticky dough. This gets rolled out and cut into 1" X 1" squares.

From Chicken and Dumplings

From Chicken and Dumplings

From Chicken and Dumplings

From Chicken and Dumplings

There's never enough broth left from a chicken, so I always end up topping it up. I add about another two quarts of water and then add chicken base to make up a broth. If you have chicken stock lying around, that'll work even better. So now we've got dumpling dough cut into squares and about three quarts of broth: it's time to get them dumplings cooked.

From Chicken and Dumplings

The trick to cooking the dumplings is to get them into boiling broth as quickly as possible, without losing the boil. So I get the broth to a very strong rolling boil and start throwing dumplings in. I find I can easily throw in a handful at a time without having any trouble; but if the boil slows to a simmer, let it get going again before putting in any more. If you're making southern-style pastry, it only takes 15 minutes to get them cooked; but fatter dumplings take longer, say 30 or 40 minutes.

From Chicken and Dumplings

While the dumplings cook, get all the chicken off the bones. I probably throw away too little, but this time Ames picked the bones for me and the meat looked great. When the dumplings look done, add the meat back in.

From Chicken and Dumplings

From Chicken and Dumplings

So that's it. It's not really that hard, but it takes most of a day: there's a lot of "hurry up and wait" with chicken and dumplings. But it's the most comforting comfort food I know, and it's well worth the day's investment to make it right.

From Chicken and Dumplings

Postscript: I got the idea of roasting the chicken in the oven from an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" where they visit Dish, a restaurant in Charlotte about a mile from where I used to work. I generally do the chicken entirely on the stovetop, but when I saw this video, I decided to try the oven. There's an excerpt from it on YouTube: http://youtu.be/BEM2MQoaFH4

Pocket knives

A friend of mine gave me a pocket-knife several years ago: a Spyderco Endura. Very shortly after I started carrying that knife, I realized why so many of my friends carry knives around. It's just too convenient to have a sharp blade every where you go.

Of course I don't mean it's as weapon. I know a lot of silly people think that: the sorts of silly people that are afraid of guns, big dogs, and their own shadows. The fact is, a sharp knife is one of the most useful tools you can have in your pocket. I find myself needing a sharp blade several times a week.

I carried that Endura everywhere I went (excepting airports: I had to put it in my checked bags every time I flew). That finally came to an end last summer, when it fell out of my pocket at my sister's house and I was unable to find it. She found it a couple weeks after I came back here, but I've not had a chance to go home since August. Next time I'm on the Island I'll claim it.

Of course, that doesn't help me now. I've a backup knife my brother-in-law gave me just before we left the East coast. It's a Browning, but I have no idea what the model is.

From Pocket Knives

The problem is, the Browning is just not a comfortable knife. It's a little block-ish in my pocket, and the clip's a little loose, no matter how I've tried to tighten it. And the knife has a liner lock; I just don't like liner locks.

So I've never really warmed up to that knife.

I started thinking about a replacement for my Endura, and I finally settled on the Cold Steel Rajah III. It's a nice little knife: a folding version of their Kukri. The blade is curved with the sharp edge on the inside. It's only 3 1/2 inches long, but it's very broad. I've always wanted a kukri: this is the closest I was likely to get.

But when my sister found the Endura, I sort of shelved my replacement plans.

But this last Christmas, my buddy handed me a package from Cold Steel. Now that's a true friend.

From Pocket Knives

I've been carrying the Rajah for a couple weeks now, and it's been a great knife. There are some down-sides: it's a little heavy for an every day carry. Not ridiculously heavy, just heavy enough that you can't quite forget it's there. In fact, it's a little bigger than my Browning, but it does feel better.

From Pocket Knives

But aside from its weight, the Rajah is my favourite knife. I love the broad blade, the deep belly, and the drop point. Let's be honest, this is a beautiful knife. Actually, it looks like something Galadriel would give a hobbit.

Still, when I get my Endura back, I think it'll go back to its place as my primary carry knife. It's not that I like it better than the Rajah, but I think the narrower blade and the less bulky haft make it a lot more practical for every day use. But honestly, if I ever end up lost in the wilderness, I think the Rajah's what I want in my pocket.

I know he can get the job...

My parents gave me a gift card to Amazon. I've always got a few items in my cart there, so it's always appreciated.

I just received a DVD I ordered, Joe versus the Volcano. I am quite convinced this is among the best films ever made, perhaps the best.

It's not that there's an incredibly complex plot: the story is remarkably simple. It's not that it's terribly humorous: there are a lot of great one-liners, but the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. This movie is great because it tells a simple story very well. And it does so effortlessly.

Most people I've known who've seen this movie didn't like it. I understand that: it's a movie that's not easy to classify, which means it's hard to know what to expect. The first time I saw it, I wasn't sure what I thought. The second time, I was convinced it was brilliant.

The story is about Joe, a hypochondriac with a dead-end job in a depressing factory. His boss is an idiot, his co-workers are lifeless, and he's miserable. Then his doctor tells him he really is sick: he'll be dead in six months. So Joe quits his job. The next day, he's approached by an insane business man who offers to pay for him to live like a king, if he'll jump into a volcano in one month. Seeing no real point to his life, Joe agrees.

The story follows Joe on his journey to a small south Pacific island with an enormous volcano, into which he's planning to jump. Joe meets several memorable characters: the limousine driver who teaches him how to dress, the salesman obsessed with luggage, and the spoiled daughter of the businessman paying Joe. The characters are brilliantly done: drawn in bold strokes, but very simply. Each feels like a real person.

Ultimately, its Joe's journey to find a purpose for his life. He quits his job, goes shopping, sails to the South Pacific, is shipwrecked, and finds the best luggage in the world.

If you've not seen the movie, I recommend you watch it. If you've only seen it once, you need to watch it a second time. It's not the sort of thing you can really grasp the first time. To me, this is one of those movies that comes out of nowhere and stuns me. It's funny, quirky, a little strange, and a little exciting. The acting is great, the story is interesting despite its simplicity, and the characters are convincing. The photography is captivating; there is a whole host of symbols and images that appear and reappear through the movie. Well worth the $5 on Amazon.

Back to it

Working in higher ed has a lot of frustrations and aggravations that just come with the territory, but there are some definite perks. One is that my place of work basically shuts down for a little over a week every Christmas. That didn't prevent me getting called a couple times when the campus was "closed", but I still ended up with more than a week off.

It was a nice break: I made some beer, played the guitar and mandolin, cooked, read a little, and watched some movies.

I've been reading The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson: it's well worth the effort.

I might try and actually finish more books this year: it seems I'm about 75% done a dozen books at any given time, and most just end up back on my bookshelf without my actually crossing the finish line.

Every year, my sister Shan sends me something cool for Christmas. Shan's what I might call a very gifted giver. She has a knack for finding that perfect thing you didn't know you wanted. She made my Bodum Cozy, she gave me the CD of Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales," and she gave me her own copy of The Grand Sophy. This year she gave me a copy of the BBC's adaptation of North and South.

Yesterday one of the kids was sick and I wasn't feeling the best, so we popped the new DVDs into the player, expecting to watch one of the four episodes. We watched them all in one sitting. Shan describes the story as "Pride and Prejudice for grown-ups." Is it my favourite 19th Century book adaptation? I don't know... I'll need to watch it a couple more times. It's definitely in the running.

I think I prefer it to BBC's famous and brilliant Pride and Prejudice adaptation, solely on the grounds that it is visually more pleasing. The P&P miniseries was really very well done, but the DVDs are awful: they're washed out and colourless. (I hear the Blu-ray version really is much better.) But I'm very fond of the 2009 version of Emma. I don't know if the melancholy brilliance of N&S can possibly overcome the much more cheerful--- but not totally insipid--- E.

Here's a question, if it's not insipid, does that mean it's "sipid"?

Finally, my neighbour bought me the Lord of the Rings, Extended Edition on Blu-ray last summer. We had said we'd watch them together, and we're still not finished. It's hard finding times when we're both free. We've made it through The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. We were supposed to watch The Return of the King on New Year's Eve, but we got pre-empted.

This is a time when the "new and improved" really is. I watched the same sequences both on the older DVD version and the Blu-ray version, and I can actually see the difference. For example, the threads in Frodo's cloak are plainly visible.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Back to Perl and Java and Unix and Lisp and Spring and Hibernate and email and Oracle and GWT. I'm not really depressed by the thought, but it's been nice to get away from it for a while.

Back to real life

Well, 2011 is over and done. I was just starting to get fond of it.

Today being the first Sunday of the month, there was "eating at the meeting". We never made it all the way in: one of the kids was sick, so we turned tail and ran before we actually got to the hall. Of course I didn't know that yesterday; I finished 2011 barbecuing some chicken to take this morning. I must say the chicken looked pretty good.

From New Year's Eve 2011

On a more celebratory and seasonal note, my neighbour got hold of a rib roast and had us grill it for New Year's. I've never done a standing rib roast before, so I approached this task with some fear and trepidation, with my neighbour documenting the whole thing on my camera.

The roast was pre-seasoned, so I suppose I had it slightly easy. On the other hand, I've no idea how to reproduce the roast.

From New Year's Eve 2011

We started out by searing the roast on all sides.

From New Year's Eve 2011

From New Year's Eve 2011

From New Year's Eve 2011

Once properly seared, the roast was left on the grill with a drip pan under it. We kept the temperature between 270F and 350F. The roast was done in a little under four hours.

From New Year's Eve 2011

I took the roast off when the thermometer registered 138F. The temperature climbed to 145F over the next half-hour or so, which is a perfect medium rare.

The only real problem was, I had anticipated the roast taking a good hour or hour-and-a-half longer; so it sat out more than an hour before we carved it. But I needn't have worried. It all turned out fine.

To be perfectly honest, I've not been a huge fan of prime rib: I've always preferred either a roast (with Yorkshire pudding, of course) or a steak. But I have to say that this little adventure has piqued my interest. This is a little project I'd like to try again.

Best of all, Ames made her amazing potatoes gratin. Ah.

Homeward Bound

I've been in Texas a week. It's been a good week, but I'm ready to head home. I miss Ames.

So I'm happy my return flight is tonight, but I have to say I've had a great time in Texas. I've been three nights in Dallas/Fort Worth, a couple nights in San Antonio, and a couple nights in Kerrville. I hate to admit this, but Texas was nothing like what I expected. I had a very Hollywood concept of Texas, and I've been disabused of those notions. To be blunt, I've loved my time here, and I'd happily come back any time.

Obviously my first concern when I visit a new place is the food. This has been a great trip for food, and I'm starting to believe what a friend told me: San Antonio is one of the greatest food cities. Now I've had very kind and generous hosts, so I doubtless did better than I would have alone: I'm very grateful for their hospitality. This has largely been a restaurant trip---there's not been a lot of home-cooking this trip. On the other hand, the home-cooking I did get was incredible.

So in terms of restaurants, we've eaten at:

1. 7 Salsas in Irving. The best salsa I've ever tasted, anywhere.
2. Hard Eight BBQ in Dallas. I still prefer North Carolina Q, but these guys have nothing to be ashamed of.
3. The Koffee Kup in Hico. Peanut-butter pie.
4. La Fogata in San Antonio. Wow.
5. George's Restaurant in Waco. Amazing chicken-fried steak.
6. Chef Point Cafe in Fort Worth. Fine dining in a gas station. Seriously.

Yeah, that's a little sick.

The real reason of my trip was a Bible Conference in Kerrville. It was a good time, and I was privileged to meet some really great people. I laughed way too hard, and I enjoyed the people way too much. If they let me come back, I'm sure going to try. The conference itself had its ups and downs, as these things do. I learned about Christ's three appearings (Hebrews 9:24--28). I learned about Leviticus 1--7 as seen in Luke 7. It was well worth the trip.

I didn't bring a camera, so I didn't take any pictures. Suffice it to say that fried chicken and waffles is much better than you might imagine, Texas sun is much brighter than we ever see in Washington state, the people here take their southern courtesy and hospitality very seriously, and San Antonio reminds me more of Victoria, BC than I ever would have imagined.

I've sure enjoyed being in Texas, but it's time to go home. I miss Ames the most, I miss my girls just a shade less. The sunshine here is really nice, but I'd much rather have a whole lot of cold, dark rain and not be away from the family.

A few more hours and I'm homeward bound.

Sundance First Paddle

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I took a day off work to take the new canoe for a test run on Alder Lake. Alder Lake's about half-way between Tacoma and Mt. Rainier: it's a good place to go for a quick paddle without having to drive for hours.

The Sundance is 17 feet long, so we all five got in it and started paddling

It was a sunny Thursday in August, but there weren't a lot of people on the water. We did see some swimmers, but we only saw a couple close-up. This guy's the only swimmer we got on camera.

From Sundance first paddle

We were slow on the draw with the camera, so we didn't get shots of most of what we saw out there. We came around one point and apparently startled a pair of bald eagles: they took off just a few feet over the water, then flew up to the peak of a nearby hill. We saw one of them on the return trip as well, but not so close as the first time. There was also an osprey hanging around one particular channel.

We paddled out an hour and a half down the lake to a deserted beach where we stopped to eat. It wasn't much, but the view was nice.

From Sundance first paddle

From Sundance first paddle

Alder Lake's built up some on one side, but the majority of it's still more-or-less desolate.

The lake's man-made, so there are the typical stumps and shelves, which to me simply add ambience.

From Sundance first paddle

All in all it was a wonderful and relaxing day.

From Sundance first paddle

From Sundance first paddle