The Pork Boys Do Chicken and Dumplings

Well, autumn is really settling in here, boys, and the temp is going on down to 28 degrees tonight - first time below freezing since away last February, I think.  Of course it will be back up to 60 in a couple of days, so we are not concerned, except for our pot plants, the most tender of which we have already hustled inside.  (N. B.--This has nothing to do with any kind of drugs, which we both abhor.  "Pot plants" is merely a longtime Southernism for what I suppose the rest of y'all call your pott-ed plants.  Whatever.)

But where to put them all?  Not only has M.P. accumulated more this year than ever before, but he also fed them plant food and Epsom salts (?--don't ask me) through the summer.  So we have suddenly had to find a place indoors for two dozen giant plants.  Oh dear, what to do, what to do?  Aha.  We decided to turn the living/dining room into a winter garden, and just look what a lovely conservatory it makes!

The picture does not fully convey the mammoth size of these green darlings.
Front and center:  our thai pepper bush, loaded with spicy red fruit. 

The big spiny guy is Mr. Pineapple, whose sawtooth leaves make getting around the table a sticky business.  No, he's never made a pineapple, but we keep hoping.  (Can plants be gay?)

A splendid solution, don't you think?  All our happy little plants together in one room.  So convenient for care and feeding.  But what's that, you ask?  Where are we going to have our Sunday dinners?  Ah well, that is a difficulty that M. le Chef will have to puzzle out.  I'm sure he'll think of something.  Me, I'm just the dishwasher, and not paid to worry about such details.

But last weekend we did have a couple of lovely belly-warming dinners.  On Saturday, M.P. made a luxuriously smooth and creamy cheese soup from Velveeta, sour cream, minced boiled potatoes, sauteed onions and bell peppers, and Ro-Tel.  Yummmm. 

Also some sausage balls made from ground sausage, obviously, and Bisquick and a little shredded cheese (white and yellow cheddar).  And homemade croutons made from toasted bread.  All of which was just wonderful with the hot cheese soup on a cold night.

On Sunday, M.P. finally got to try out his new cast-iron dutch oven - he wanted a bigger pot than any he already has, so I bought him this 7-quart job as an early Xmas present. It is five inches deep inside, very nearly a foot across at the top, and with the lid on weighs a full 15 pounds.  Empty.  Now fellas, this is a pot that will separate the men from the boys in the kitchen.  I tell you what.

M.P. was tickled with his new pot, and promptly made seven quarts of the most delicious chicken and dumplings you ever saw.  I suppose there are few things dearer to a Southerner's heart than homemade chicken and dumplings, unless it's fried chicken.  M.P. spent most of the day and night working on this delectable dish:  first he marinated the chicken in wine and herbs, then boiled it in chicken broth, and finally boned it when it got cool.  Then he put the chicken back into the broth and heated to boiling again.

For the dumplings, he made his regular buttermilk biscuit dough, rolled it out flat, sliced it into strips with a pizza cutter, and dropped them one by one into the boiling chicken broth.  They puffed up very nicely, as you can see here.

It's a pity the picture can't convey the tempting aroma and luscious taste of this dish - all I can say is, it sure is mighty good eatin' on a cold night, boy howdy!  Sure do wish I could hand each one of you fellas a bowlful.  I do believe you would like it, no matter who you are or where you come from.

As if that were not enough, M.P. also took a notion to set us up a potato bar with foil-wrapped, oven-baked potatoes (he deeply scorns my lazy, unwrapped microwave method, as you might guess), and all the usual fixin's.  For my overseas truckbuddies, that means butter, sour cream & chives, shredded cheese (Swiss and cheddar), and crumbled oven-baked bacon.  And I can testify that a fully loaded baked potato is another very fine thing to eat on a cold night, yessir it is.

And to round things off, for our green vegetable M.P. whipped up a pot of Petits Pois à la Tim - who very kindly some time back gave us the true, the authentic, the one and only genuine English recipe for mushy peas, which we had long heard of as a delicacy in those parts, but had no idea how to fix.  But thanks to Tim, we now know to add butter, cream, salt, and pepper to a can of English peas, and then mash them real gentle-like while softly humming Greenpeas "Greensleeves."  Utterly simple and utterly marvelous, and that is no joke.  Green and creamy and completely satisfying in every respect. Thanks again, Tim.  By the way - they go just as delightfully with chicken as they do with fish, and you can take my word for it, boys.

It all came together very nicely, I must say, when we filled our plates.  Our table theme this week, by the way, was simply--gold.  Rhymes with cold.

Of course, we both had to go back for seconds and thirds on the C&D, which we were slurping down just as fast as we could go.  By the time we finally ate all we could hold, there was just no room or desire for dessert.

Well, let's see, I reckon that's all I have in my picture box to show you fellas - oh wait just a minute, I almost forgot to show you this here little beauty, pictured last Thursday by the kitchen door:

Ain't she purty?  M.P. buys me a hibiscus bush every spring - it's one of my favorite flowers, which amid the dry, withering sizzle of a Texas summer always reminds me of the ocean breezes of tropical Florida, where hibiscuses (hibisci?) grow in profusion. I thought this would surely be the last bloom of the year, but the very next day, a second one opened after this bloom had fallen off. Such exquisitely beautiful things.

And that's all there is for now, boys.  Y'all take care and stay warm.

Toujours bon appetit!