Category: bargains

The most comforting chicken and dumplings

The weather in Chicago continues to be garbage, and we’re all doing the best we can.  It was Sunny Sunday and as warm as 20 degrees – and people flocked to the outdoor mall in droves to enjoy the warm spell and boost their moods a little in the sunshine. Today, however, it’s snowing again, and not quite as warm as the sun made it Sunday.

So I’ve got that, there are still more hours of darkness than daylight every day, and work is heating up in advance of the Big Meeting my office will host at the local convention center next month. At home, I’m searching for comfort food.

Gooseberry Patch

 I went to Gooseberry Patch – specifically, the 2009  calendar I received as a holiday gift.  Gooseberry Patch has a whole line of cookbooks that I go to when I’m looking to make some kind of tried-and-true dish without putting a whole lot of effort into it. Think: crockpot dishes, baked casseroles that have cream soup bases, and anything that involves ground beef.  The good thing is that they’re all good and use a lot of pantry staples. The bad part is that theat sometimes involved “shortening” on the list of ingredients.  Just something to be aware of.

The calendar’s recipe for January was for chicken with dumplings – which was, as expected, cheap and easy: 1 can of cream of chicken soup, 4 cans of chicken broth, chicken, 2 cans of vegetables, and two tubes of refrigerated biscuits.

The recipes in Gooseberry Patch are all like that – folksy foods that can be prepared quickly and inexpensively to feed a crowd: Fruit salad dressed with a mixture of honey, lemon juice and pineapple juice;  a recipe for cheesy herbed biscuits ingredients that you layer in a canning jar to give as a gift; fudge made with shortening; popcorn balls for Halloween.

Regardless, the chicken and dumplings I made last week was perfect for the modd I was in, and the refrigerated biscuits made great dumplings.  I dropped the raw dough in the top of the boiling soup and covered the pot. The dough sort of sat on top of the soup for a combination of boiling/steaming/braising, and absorbed all of the flavors of the soup base.

I made the chicken version of the recipe for myself, and a vegetable version for friends who needed a comforting meal. I thought both were good.  I even slipped a few peas in – which I hate! – but I got them down without hesitating.

File Under: Seemed like a good idea at the time

Three young men in Maine were arrested August 29 for what I would consider bargain hunting.  The Bangor Daily News reports:

The Skinny Dip sandwich at the Black Frog Restaurant is free if you bare all and brave a jump into the cold waters of Moosehead Lake, but the court fee for indecent conduct isn’t.

Three friends who took the plunge bare-naked over the weekend and had the tasty sliced prime rib in a baguette roll may now have wished they’d ordered another meal or paid the $10.95 for the sandwich.

http://bakingbites.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/frenchdip.jpg

See, the restaurant backs up to a small lake, and have outdoor seating on a barge.  When our heroes expressed interest in dropping their pants for the free sandwich, the restaurant owner asked his other patrons if they would mind.  None did, and the young men proceeded with their naked jump in the lake.

Sadly, their jump did offend a family that was standing on a nearby boardwalk (they were the ones who called the police to complain), as well as a local gamewarden who was refueling his boat. Police came to the restaurant to arrest the jumpers.

Here’s where it gets good:

When police arrived and issued the summons, all of the restaurant patrons on the barge pitched in and donated money to the streakers to help pay the fine, according to Turner. He believed the guests provided about $150 to each of the three skinny dippers.

The Class E crime is punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, but the local District attorney said the punishment for such a misdemeanor would not involve jail time and that the fine would likely range from $300 to $500 each.

And the restaurant owner will continue to offer a free sandwich for diners who take the plunge.

My worlds collide

How is this even possible? I found a food note on a grammar blog (Yes, I am one of the 9,000 current card carrying members of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar):

Susan F. takes no prisoners, at least when it comes to her snacks. She objects to language in a Power Bar ad that reads: “Eat Good. Look Great.”

She says, “I wrote a letter, saying that ‘Eat Well’ would have been a better choice of words and grammatically correct.

It turns out that Susan wrote two letters to the makers of Power Bar, and was eventually told that slogans don’t have to be grammatically correct. They also gave her coupons. She gave the coupons away.

While I am not usually one to shy away from coupons, I admire her loyalty to the cause!