#519 mmmm...chicken and dumplings

Friday was absolutely gorgeous and spring-y. Yesterday was cloudy and windy but warm, then it rained a little and snowed overnight. We woke up to four inches of snow today.

What's a girl to do in a situation like this but make comfort food? I've been craving chicken and dumplings for awhile, so that's what I made. The recipe comes from Rachael Ray's original "30 Minute Meals" cookbook. It's easy and delicious.

Take 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts and cut them into bite size pieces. Dust the chicken pieces with flour, then brown the chicken in a large pot in a couple of tablespoons of oil (I used canola). While the chicken is browning, dice up some carrots. I used about eight baby carrots. Dice two stalks of celery, one medium onion and one small onion. When the chicken is brown, remove it from the pot and set aside. Cover with foil. Put the diced veggies in the pot along with another tablespoon of oil. Add a little salt and pepper and let the veggies cook until they are soft. Should take about 8 - 10 minutes.

When the veggies are soft, add three cans of chicken broth (I prefer reduced sodium) and one cup of water. Add back the chicken. Let the liquid come to a boil. While the liquid is heating, mix up the dumplings. I used two cups of Bisquick and 2/3 cup of milk. (Thanks for the recipe, Dad!) Mix until a soft dough ball is formed - do not overmix.

When the liquid is boiling, drop the dumplings in by tablespoon. A good trick is to dip the spoon down into the hot liquid, and it will pull the dumpling off the spoon for you. Keep your dumplings pretty small because they will expand in the hot liquid and might not cook through if they are too big to begin with.

Cook the dumplings in the boiling liquid, uncovered, for about 10 minutes. Then reduce heat, cover, and cook for about 10 more minutes.

This is filling and comforting and delicious! Enjoy!

And now a couple of other little notes:

Our new mattress was delivered on Friday. I'm telling you, the mattress is like two feet thick. It's tall! It's cushion-y. I couldn't sleep at all on Friday. For one thing, the new mattress was so different from my other one, I couldn't get comfortable. It felt so soft, I just rolled around all night. Plus I was having a tough time with my right leg - arthritis attack. Can you have an arthritis attack? I don't know, but I felt like it was attacking me. I couldn't straighten the leg and it just ached. I was pretty miserable. I'm happy to say that I slept better last night. My leg hurt less and I was able to get some rest. The mattress is comfortable.

When I woke up this morning I wasn't able to straighten my right leg. The knee was bent and ugly. MT told me that I should skip my P90X workout this morning, but since it was just the stretching workout, I decided to do it. Boy, am I glad I did. I was able to gently get the leg straightened out and it feels so much better now! I think the combination of the weather and the tougher workouts aggravated the arthritis. I am being careful, and if I feel like I can't do an exercise, I don't. Yesterday was the Kenpo workout, which is kickboxing. The joints feel good during the activity, but stiffen up when it's over. I think that's what was happening overnight. Thank God for Aleve.

One more thing - I lost 1.8 lbs last week! I'm down 87.8 lbs total since I first started. Other than the arthritis flare-up, I feel really good. Today was day 25 of P90X and I haven't missed a workout. The program is tough. It's challenging and there are some things that I just plain old cannot do at this time. It's ok, though. I do the best I can and keep trying. Like I've said before, I can see little changes happening to my body and I like it.

Take care everyone!