5 Minutes A Day

My lack of blogging has been weighing on me. I want to do it more, but it creates in me a sort of dread when I think about all I have to update on and pictures... oy, when you have a lot of pictures there just isn't a quick and easy way to get them up here.

So I decided that I will aim for 5 minutes a day. Certainly I commit more than that to Facebook... I'll just steal a couple of its minutes and put them here. When I have pictures, I do generally put them on my Facebook account. You can view my albums here. I'll post a link when I do upload something new there.

Today's news:

The kids and I went to our MOPS group today. One of the interesting things we did was a "stand up if..." type of thing and I learned that there are 2 more people homeschooling that I didn't know about! There were two that I did know about, and one of them is at my table, but I was thrilled to see more. We even got a little ovation when we stood up. Cool :)

For the first time ever, Elly cried when I left her in the nursery. She's realizing that I come and go now, and she notices when I'm not there.

For dinner tonight we're having my Mom's Chicken & Dumplings (with Kristi's changes).

Ingredients

* 5 T. Butter
* 1 cup finely chopped onions
* 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press
* 1 t. dried thyme
* 3 T. Flour
* 1 c. chicken broth
* 1 c. milk
* 1/2 t. salt
* 2 c. diced, cooked chicken(OR 12 oz. can chunk chicken)

For dumplings:


* 1 c. flour
* 1 1/2 t. baking powder
* 1/4 t. salt
* 2 T. melted butter
* 1/2 c. milk

Directions

FOR SAUCE:

Melt butter in 5 qt pot. Add onions, garlic, and thyme and saute over medium heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add chicken broth and milk, whisking to combine. Cook until smooth, stirring constantly until thickened and sauce comes to boil. Stir in cooked chicken. If sauce is too thick, add milk or broth until consistency of thick cream. Remove pot from heat.

FOR DUMPLINGS:

Mix together dry ingredients in medium bowl. Combine wet ingredients and add to dry mixture. Stir until just combined.


Bring sauce back to boil over high heat. Quickly drop heaping tablespoons of dumpling mixture into sauce. Cover tightly, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, remove lid and cut open one dumpling. It should be fluffy and cooked through. If not done, cover and cook for a few more minutes.