As the title of this post suggests, my roots run South-wards. I was born in Virginia. I have lived in Ohio since I was four years old, which makes me feel like a true Ohioan. I truly appreciate being exposed to two different cultures while I was growing up. Believe me, life in the Virginia/West Virginia Appalachians was worlds apart from Ohio farm country "back in the day".
Even so, many aspects of home-keeping were universal, canning and preserving produce from large family vegetable gardens, sewing, cooking for large families are a few things that I can think of off-hand. Here's a difference that I noticed when I was a young adult going to Jim's family's pot-luck meals: in our area, a stewed chicken was served with noodles. In my family, the chicken started out the same, but dumplings were made instead of noodles.
I had an aunt who made the best biscuits and dumplings by just dumping flour on a clean surface and adding stuff to it. She never measured anything. Needless to say, Garnie's chicken and dumplings were to die for, especially now that I think of it because the chicken probably came from their back yard and was butchered the morning of the meal.
The love of chicken and dumplings runs so deep in my family that when my uncle Carl was ill and dying, I cooked up a chicken and made dumplings for him because I thought that the food might remind him of his boyhood in the rural Virginia mountains. My aunt Dorothy called me to tell me that he loved every bite of that meal, and I was proud of myself for keeping the dumpling tradition alive.
After our move to Ohio, mom's cooking remained the same (probably because my dad loved down-home hillbilly food), but she gave it a "modern" fifty's twist: her dumplings were actually canned biscuit dough.
To my surprise, Kerry's one request for food for me to cook for her when she came home from the hosptial with new baby Isaac was chicken and dumplings. This was pre-mediated; she had already bought a chicken and two options for dumplings, canned biscuits or multi-purpose baking mix.
Marcheta's Short-Cut Chicken and Dumplings
I put the chicken in a large pot with carrots, celery, garlic-onion seasoning and a dash of Penzey's Forward spice mix. When it was cooked, I strained the broth and put it in a bowl in the fridge to let the fat rise to to top for skimming off. I boned the chicken and set it aside. To give the dish extra flavor, I added a can of cream of celery soup to the broth before adding the boned chicken. While this was coming to a boil, I made dumplings with the dry mix, as I think it makes a fluffier dumpling than canned biscuit dough. When the broth and chicken was at a rolling boil, I dropped in spoonfuls of dumpling dough and covered the kettle with a lid to let the dough cook for a few minutes, then I removed the lid and turned the dumplings over. My drop dumplings are big, so they took a few more minutes to get done. The only side dish I served was peas.
Some recipes call for adding vegetables to the chicken, such as carrots, peas, and even potatoes. To me, this makes the dish more like a soupy pot pie, which is good but definitely not the type of chicken and dumplings I am familiar with.
Oh, for sure, my and my mom's method of making an old-fashioned chicken and dumplings is cheating by any old-fashioned standards, but it is still tasty and fits the bill of comfort food for a tired family.
The true test was Kerry, who after five days of hospital food ate a huge plate of her requested comfort food.
Marcheta *comforted
P.S. Mom, Dad, Big Sister, Big Brother and New Baby are all adjusting nicely. Dogs? Not so much.
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