Making Monday: Chicken and Dumplings

     Happy Making Monday and happy new year everyone! This week, I'm sharing with you how my family makes Chicken and Dumplings.

• 1 Whole Chicken
• Water
• 4-8 cans of biscuits
• salt and pepper to taste

     First, boil your chicken. Make sure to fill the pot up until the chicken is covered, and keep the chicken covered. If you have to add more water throughout, that's fine. Take the chicken out and de-bone it, don't dump the broth, you're going to need it! Put all of your chicken back into your broth and start adding in your biscuits. We usually tear the biscuits into fourths, because we like a lot of biscuits in ours. Continue cooking until the dumplings are cooked in the center. 

     Season with salt and pepper and enjoy!

How do you make your chicken and dumplings? Let me know in the comments!

Making Monday: Cheesy Potato Bacon Soup

     Though the holiday season is over, I thought I'd still occasionally share some recipes with you all. I've been craving potato soup for months now, so today, I'm sharing Crock Pot Cheesy Potato Soup. It's really like a soup-ed baked potato. I cut out the onions and put bacon in the actual soup rather than on top., but it's still really good!

Recipe from Recipes that Crock.

• 6 cups potatoes, peeled and cubed
• ½ c onion, diced
• 32-oz container chicken broth
• 1 c water
• 3 T all-purpose flour
• 1 c milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 8-oz pkg shredded Cheddar cheese
• Bacon and Green Onions for garnishing. 

Peel and cut your potatoes into cubes
Dice about a half of a small onion until you have ½ cup
Put potatoes and onion in your crock pot
Add your chicken broth and water to your crock pot
Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours
Mix together your flour, salt, pepper and milk.
Pour mixture into your crock pot and turn the heat to high
Cover and cook for an additional 20-30 minutes
When the soup has thickened, add your cheese and stir together until the cheese melts
Garnish with bacon and green onions

     What kind of soups do you like to make during the colder months? Next week, look out for how my family makes Chicken and Dumplings!

Easter Weekend

   This weekend was Easter weekend. We dyed eggs, I made pies, and Mom and I made lunch. We dyed eggs yesterday, and when we were all done, I had some leftover dye, which I decided to use to dye some Corriedale I had.

   I'm calling this one Sulley (from Monsters Inc)

   This one's just pink with glitter.

I don't have any photos of the pies I made, but I'll share the recipes I used.

For the chocolate pie, Chocolate Cream Pie II I've made this pie for every holiday for the last couple of years, I've never had a problem with the filling setting up, but this time, it was more like pudding in a crust. I'm thinking it should've been set in the fridge for a longer period.

For the coconut cream pie, Emeril Lagasee's Coconut Cream Pie My mom says she loves this pie, I've never tried it because I don't like coconut, but you should try it for yourself.

For the cherry pie I made, I used this recipe and 1 can of cherry pie filling. Pour the can of cherry pie filling into a baked 9-inch deep dish pie crust, prepare the vanilla pudding per the instructions, and pour over the cherries. Chill in fridge at least 3 hours before serving. I'm allergic to cherries, but my PawPaw, who I made this for, said it was really good. He took the whole pie home.

I hope you all have had a great Easter weekend, full of chocolate, family, and fun. I'll see you back here later this week.

My Favorite Biscuit Recipe

I make these biscuits all the time! My family and I love them. They're a southern style biscuit and are great with Butter! They're great with breakfast, dinner, or even just as a snack!

• 3 Cups flour
• 6 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 6 T softened butter
• 1 1/2 c milk 

Preheat oven to 425F (218C)

Mix dry ingredients together, cut in butter, then add milk and mix well. Turn out onto floured surface and roll to 1/2-3/4 inch thickness, depending on how thick you want your biscuits. 

Makes 6-10 biscuits

Let me know how you like them!