Brielle's Avalon

Cat and the kids came over today. Deciding on dinner was interesting. The leftover meat in the fridge was chicken, so it didn’t really go with spaghetti. I was out of salsa so no Mexican food. We didn’t feel like waiting for a casserole. I did have left over broth. And leftover mashed potatoes. Hmm… potato dumplings. Chicken and dumplings. Whip out the can of cream of mushroom soup and go to it! Of course, if you don’t have leftover chicken or some other bird you’ll have to start by looking up my post on How To Roast A Bird and Making Broth so you can have leftovers to work with. Or you can buy a rotisserie bird from the deli and use canned broth, but what fun would that be? So…

Put the broth in a pan and warm to simmer. Pull out a casserole or cake pan, open the cream of mushroom soup and put it in the pan. Add 2 Tbsp sour cream and thin with 2/3 can milk, water or broth or a combination. Tonight I used a combination. Mix. Tear the chicken into little pieces and mix into the soup. Pop into the oven at 350 degrees to warm.

Pull out the leftover mashed potatoes and put about a cup or so in a mixing bowl and mix with an egg. Add 2/3 c flour, sprinkle with salt, pepper and nutmeg and mix. cut a slice of bread into croutons. Take a bit of dumpling batter on a spoon, press a crouton into it, cover it with a bit more dumpling and push off the spoon (with another spoon) into the simmering broth. By the time you’ve done about four the first one should be ready to take out. Use a slotted spoon and put it in a bowl. Repeat till you’re out of dumpling dough, about ten or twelve. Pull the chicken out, arrange the dumplings on top, sprinkle with cheese (optional) and put back in the oven till the cheese melts.

Serve with a salad. Broccoli, cauliflower and zucchini go well with this too, you could even add it with the chicken, especially if you need to stretch the chicken. White wine or milk is good to drink with this too, depending on your age. Brownies or cookies make a good desert, especially with more milk. Just for the record, that one chicken made this dinner for four; a batch of broth that made stuffing, the dumplings for this dinner and tomorrow will make more stuffing; one drumstick dinner for me and two sandwiches. Not bad for a $4.99 convenience deli bird. If you happen to have leftover turkey, duck, goose, ostrich or any feathered friend they can be used for this too.