Ranch Dressing

I've made this recipe for several years.  I've tweaked it a lot, and I think I've finally got it just right. My daughter wanted the recipe, so I thought I would share it on here too.  Enjoy!

Ranch Dip or Dressing

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of Parsley (dried)

1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 teaspoon of onion powder

1/2 cup of mayo

1/2 cup of sour cream.

If you're making dip, leave it like it is.  It will be thick enough to dip veggies in etc.  If you want a salad dressing, mix in a little bit of milk until it is the consistency that you like.  If you don't have any sour cream in the house it's no biggie, just use one cup of mayo.   This will probably keep about a week in the fridge.  

*Make sure your dried parsley is bright green.  If it's dark green or brown, throw it out because it's probably old!

Mini books!

This past weekend, I went to a book making workshop.  One of the first things we did was learn how to fold  and cut a piece of printer paper to make a mini book. I thought this was so cool, and can't believe I've never seen it before.  The possibilities are endless.  You can make them with the kids, and they call fill them with their artwork.
For each mini book you'll need one piece of printer paper, scissors, and pens, markers etc.

Fold it in half this way, and crease it well.

Open it up and fold in half again the long way. 

With it still folded the long way, fold this in half, then in half again.

When you open up the paper, these are the folds you should have at this point.

Next, you'll need to make a cut in the middle where I"ve drawn the line.  To do this, I fold the paper the short way and cut as shown.

This is what the cut should look like.

With the paper standing on the table, and the cut in the middle, hold each end of the paper and push it together, and crease.

Before creasing it should look like this:

That's all there is to it.  Now for the fun part.  Fill your book with words or artwork!

Here is an example that the instructor made:

Here's one of mine.  :)

You can do it with whatever paper you  have around.  Construction paper, junk mail, etc.  It doesn't need to be this size either.  You can make them larger or smaller.  

Chicken Gumbo (Chicken and Dumplings)

Most people call this Chicken and Dumplings, but when my kids were little we called it Chicken Gumbo, and it stuck.  I've been making it for over 20 years, and it's still one of our favorite go to foods

Start with a small roaster chicken, or a split chicken breast, or some boneless chicken breast.  (Whatever chicken you have in the house will work) Today I'm using boneless chicken breast, because that's what I had in the freezer.  Place your chicken in a medium/large pot.  Fill with water until the pot is 3/4 full.

Add some cut up onion, some dried parsley, a couple of garlic cloves, and some celery cut up into large pieces.  (You can keep celery seed in the house for those times  when there is no celery in your fridge)  If using celery seed, add about a teaspoon.

Turn the heat to high and bring this to a boil.  As soon as it boils, turn down the heat and cover.  

Let this simmer for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, you can make the dough for the dumplings.

In a large bowl add 

2 cups of flour

1/4 tsp of salt

2 Tablespoons of shortning

Cut the shortning into the flour and salt.  

You can use one of these tools, a butter knife or your hands to do this.   

When the shortening is all incorporated into the flour, add 1/2 cups of water, and a large egg.   

Mix this all together, and knead the dough for a few minutes.  

Cover it and set it in the fridge for later.

After the chicken and veggies have been simmering for a couple of hours, you'll have a nice chicken broth in the pot, and the whole house will smell good. Talk out the chicken and place it on a plate.  

Strain out the veggies, garlic, etc and put the broth back into the pan

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces

Put the cut up chicken pieces back into the broth in the pot.  Bring this back to a boil

Remove the dough from the fridge.  Using one small piece of dough at a time, roll it out as thin as you can.

Cut this into squares or rectangles.  

My family likes 2 inch noodles, but you can cut them as big or small as you like.

Set these aside and roll out some more dough and cut it into squares.  

Continue until you've rolled out all the dough, and cut it all into noodles.

When the broth in the pan is boiling, start dropping in your noodles. one at a time.  

They will drop the the bottom at first then rise up to the top.  

Keep dropping them in until all the noodles are in the pot.  Let this boil for 5- 10 minutes.

Last, I like to thicken up the broth in the pan to make a chicken gravy.  

Whisk together a couple of tablespoons of flour with about a 1/4 cup of water until smooth.  

Pour this into the boiling soup and stir.  It will quickly thicken up to look something like this:

At this point I add some more dried parsley, and a little bit of fresh black pepper.

Let everyone add their own salt to taste.

You can have this alone, or with some chunks of bread  or homemade biscuits for dipping. 

I also wanted to note that I always double the noodle recipe, because in our family everyone loves them, and there are never enough!  :)

Quick Sour Cream Dinner Biscuits

Here is a quick recipe for sour cream biscuits that you can whip up to have with dinner when there isn't any bread in the house.  When you're having beef stew or chicken gumbo, you NEED these.  :)

Ingredients
1 cup of flour

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
1/3 cup of milk
2 Tbsp of sour cream
2 Tbsp of Mayo

Preheat oven to 350F
Line baking sheet with parchment paper, or grease it lightly.
In a medium size bowl mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt
Add the milk, mayo and sour cream
Mix until soft dough forms.  Don't over mix!
Use a spoon to drop 6 mounds of dough spaced out evenly onto the prepared cooking sheet
Bake on the middle oven rack until very lightly browned.  Approx 25-30 min, but keep an eye on them because oven temps vary.

Crispy Munchie Parmesan Chicken

What's for dinner? I checked out the fridge and  I had some chicken tenders, some mayo, some parmesan cheese, and some leftover Munchies (the snack with pretzels, little doritos, and cheetos) that my son didn't eat, so I decided to make crunchy chicken.  You don't have to use Munchies.  You can use whatever you have in the house such as Doritos, Cheetos, potato chips, pretzels etc.  If you don't have any of these, you can also use bread crumbs.

Preheat the oven to 425F

Mix about a 1/4 cup of mayo with 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. I'm making about 4 chicken tenders, but if you have more, then mix more mayo and parm (1/2 cup mayo and 1/2 cup parm)

 Add the chicken to the bowl and cover with the mayo/parm mixture.

With a rolling pin or something similar, crush the munchies until they are crumbs.

Pour them onto a plate 

                                                One at a time, coat both sides of the chicken

                                  Place them on a foil lined baking sheet that's been lightly greased.

Bake in preheated oven  until done.(about 8 minutes).  Turn each piece of chicken over, and cook for about  another 8 minutes on the other side.   Cut one open to make sure it is cooked through. Delicious!

How to Make Beef Stew

I've been making this beef stew for my family for years.  It's slow cooked and delicious.  I tend to make it more in the cold months, since it's slow cooked.  (I don't want to heat up the house in the summer)

I used a chuck roast for this stew. I cut the roast into 1 or 2 inch chunks. If you wish you can buy stew meat.. (It's already cut into pieces)

I put these into a frying pan to sear the edges of the meat

You want to brown the meat like this to get some nice flavor in your stew:

Fill a large pot a little over halfway with water.  Place the meat into the water.  Turn up the burner to medium high to bring this to a boil.  While waiting for this to come a boil, peel and cut the potatos into chunks the same size as you did the meat.

Place the potatos into the pot with the meat.  

Grind in some black pepper.  (Don't add salt while cooking. Let people salt to their own taste later) When this comes to a boil, cover the pot and reduce the heat to low.  It should be low enough not be be boiling, but still simmering.  Let this simmer for 2-3 hours.  For your stew to be a success, you really need to cook this slow and at a low temp in order for the collagen in the meat to break down.  This makes the  meat tender and delicious.  When it's been cooking this long, you get a nice beef broth in the pan.  I like to thicken this up into almost a gravy.  

To do this, I whisk together a 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water.  Pour this into the simmering pot of stew and stir until it thickens.

Serve with chunks of bread. Definitely a nice winter comfort food.  :)

How to make your own bagels

Making your own bagels is really do-able.  When I tell people that I make them myself, they always seem very impressed, but it's really not that hard ;) The finished bagels taste just like the ones you can get at the deli or at Dunkin Donuts. After you've done this about 5 different times, you'll know the recipe by heart, and it gets easier each time.

You'll need :

2 teaspoons of yeast

1 1/2 tsp of sugar

1 1/2 tsp of salt

1 1/4 cups of warm water

3 1/2 cups of flour

Toppings such as poppy seed, dehydrated onion, garlic, toasted sesame seeds

In a large bowl pour in the warm water, and sprinkle the 2 tsp of yeast, and the 1 1/2 tsp of sugar on top of the water.  

Let it sit there for about 15 minutes until it looks foamy.

Then add the 1 1/2 tsp of salt, and the flour.

Mix this with a sturdy spoon until it starts to stick together.  Take it out of the bowl and knead for about 5 minutes

Shape dough into a ball, and place a greased bowl.

Cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit on the counter until the dough has doubled in size.  (about an hour and a half)

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into 8 equal pieces.  Roll them into balls. 

Fill a large pot of water, and bring it to a boil.  At this point you should also preheat the oven to 425 F

Take each ball of dough and push your thumb through them to shape your bagels. 

Make the holes bigger than you want them to be in the end, because they will shrink a bit.

Cover these with a damp towel, and let them sit for a few minutes.

When the water comes to a boil, drop a few of the bagels in at a time.  Boil them for a minute on one side, then turn them over and boil for another minute on the other side.  I time it with my phone. .

When all of the bagels have been boiled on both sides, beat one egg in a bowl and brush it on the top of the bagels. When they have egg on them all, you can sprinkle the tops with poppy seed, sesame seed, onion, garlic, or all of these to make everything bagels. For this batch I chose poppy seed. 

Place them on a lightly greased cookie sheet and place into preheated oven.  Bake for 20 minutes.

You can eat your bagels right out of the oven, or save to toast another time.