My husbands Grandmother is from the south, Tennessee to be exact. She cooks like she is from the south and shes an outspoken, hard workin, take no shit kinda lady. The first Christmas eve I spent with BJ and his family , about 15 years ago, I was treated to the most wonderful meal and a house full of about 75 people waiting on Granny's famous chicken and dumplings. She worked all week making chocolate pies , ham and green beans, biscuits, and of course the famous chicken n dumplings which turned out to be made with flour tortillas, what a great idea! About 3 years ago we were back home in Indiana visiting when Granny called down to my in-laws house to inform us she was not feeling up to making Christmas eve dinner and that she was calling off the whole thing. Before I had a chance to offer up some help My father in-law, her eldest child, had jumped in his truck with BJ and headed over to make sure she was okay. By the time my mother-in law and I showed up BJ, his dad, and his two uncles were in the kitchen cooking up all the fixins for a Christmas eve feast with Granny shouting instructions from her favorite reclining chair. I was perhaps the sweetest thing I've ever seen and I always relate this meal with that sweet moment. My recipe is a little different, my own version that will never quite capture the magic of Granny's but I think it's pretty darned good.Today was a typical northwest kinda day, rain, more rain, gray skies and rain.
Just the perfect kinda weather for some sweet memories and some yummy comfort food.
Chicken and (fake)Dumplings
5 frozen boneless skinless chicken tenderloins (or 3 whole breasts)
3 cans low sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon smart balance (or real butter)
10 baby carrots (or 3/4 cup diced carrots)
1 teaspoon low sodium chicken soup base (or 1 bullion cube)
3 large burrito size flour tortillas cut into 2 inch strips
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon flour
1/2 teaspoon corstarch
black pepper
onion powder
warm up olive oil(I used garlic flavored olive oil from trader joes..yum!)in a pan and add frozen chicken (I buy bag of frozen chicken tenderloins and use them for EVERYTHING super easy and a really good price) and cook for about 5 minutes on low heat flipping once until mostly thawed and then add enough water to cover chicken and put a lid on and let it chicken boil until cooked all the way through with no pink in the middle. In a large pot stir together chicken broth, soup base, butter, carrots a dash of onion powder and as much black pepper as you prefer(I like A LOT) oh wait, let me back up and tell you how I dealt with the carrots. I have one of those slap chop devices, well its not actually a slapchop but its the same idea and it works GREAT for dicing up carrots perfectly. So I just put them in about 5 at a time and pounded away to perfection! Ok so back to the rest.. Once the chicken is cooked dice it up on a cutting board and put it in with the broth and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes or until the carrots start softening up. Add flour and cornstarch and stir in with a whisk to thicken the broth. stack up about 3 or 4 large flour tortillas and cut them into 1 or 2 inch strips ( I like to use a pizza cutter) drop tortilla strips into the pot and cook for about another 3-5 minutes or until the tortilla strips are soft and yummy and soaking up all the wonderful goodness of the broth. I'm thinking I might try this as tortilla soup sometime and add black beans green chillies and a can of diced tomatoes...YUM!
