Chicken & Dumplings

Have you made Chicken in a Pot yet? When you do, save your leftover meat and juice to make dumplings. Heat some olive oil in a large pot. Add some chopped onion, carrot, and celery. Saute until carrot is just tender and add minced garlic. Add whatever meat you have leftover, and some frozen or fresh corn kernels if you have them handy. Now add the leftover juice from your chicken in a pot, chicken stock, and evaporated milk until you have a good liquid to solid ratio. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Now make your dumplings.

1 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c buttermilk
2 T canola or olive oil

Mix dry ingredients. Combine milk and oil and stir into flour mixture until just moistened. Drop by spoonful into boiling soup mixture, cover with lid, reduce heat to a simmer, and let simmer for 15 minutes. No peaking!!! They will soak up a lot of liquid so make sure you add enough. Sorry, it isn't an exact recipe, but it makes for great variations.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

These are very very good. The original recipe is from Vegetarian Times but I added some chocolate chips to the batter and they now double as a semi-healthy breakfast/mostly-healthy dessert. The best part? No eggs, which means you can lick the bowl clean without an ounce of guilt.

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c sugar
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c buttermilk
3/4 c mashed banana
1/3 c canola oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 to 1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray and dust with sugar for an extra sweet crunch.

Whisk together all dry ingredients. In another bowl combine the buttermilk, banana, oil, and vanilla. Fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Gently add chocolate chips.

Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes. SO GOOD.