Advent Calendar Day 16

 

The 16th of December! Can you believe it? Good Lord.

I just purchased my final holiday gift, baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes, and I'm working on a couple of holiday codas. So that ought to do it for the holiday prep.

I'm feeling SO much better now. Body at Buccaneer Bay is finished and safely uploaded everywhere for its December 18th release (pssst! It's actually already live on Barnes and Noble! Pilot error. I got a little overanxious.)

That's the good news. The less good news is I have to tell you straight up, there's no way in hell I can finish The Movie-Town Murders for that Amazon January 4th release. I literally just finished Body at Buccaneer Bay. I haven't even started Movie-Town yet. It's going to take however long it takes. It's the next book up, and I am researching and roughing out the outline, so it's going to happen. But I'm afraid to make promises right now. I can't risk another burn out like the last one. NINE MONTHS. NINE MONTHS BETWEEN BOOKS. That's...not okay. That's not sustainable.  I'm sticking to my pledge to work at a sane and reasonable pace from here on out. The important thing (for me, anyway) is I'm not only writing again, I'm enjoying writing again. I'm not about to take any chances with that.

(Sorry if that's a lump of coal in the midst of the festivities.)

So today's Advent goodie is a recipe. In Body at Buccaneer Bay, Ellery's dad has a bowl of New England style chicken and dumplings at the charming Seacrest Inn, and that just looked (in my imagination) so delicious and comforting, I thought I'd hunt down a good recipe we can all try this winter.

This is Yankee magazine's version (adapted from the Farmer's Almanac)

It's dumplings, so I consider it sort of complicated (I've never successfully made dumplings, but maybe this will be the recipe for me). 

For the Soup

Ingredients:

1 whole 4- to 5-pound chicken

1 medium yellow onion, diced

5 bay leaves

5 tablespoons salted butter

1-1/2 tablespoons table salt, plus more to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

Instructions:

Put the chicken into a large soup pot. Cover with about ½ inch of water and add onion, bay leaves, butter, salt, and pepper. Cover, set over high heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and very gently simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 1 hour.

When the chicken is done, transfer it to a cutting board, leaving the broth and bay leaves in the pot. When chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the bone in small pieces and set aside (discard bones, skin, and other waste).

For the Dumplings

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water

2 large eggs, beaten

Garnish: minced fresh parsley

Instructions:

Put the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and whisk to blend. Add the oil and stir to coat the flour, then add the water and beaten eggs. Stir just enough to combine, then knead with clean hands until evenly mixed.

Turn the dough out onto a generously floured board and divide in half. Take the first portion and roll out into a thin rectangle. Slice the dough lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide strips, then cut cross-wise into pieces 4 inches long. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bring the broth back to a boil. Drop the dumpling strips into the boiling liquid. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until the dumplings are tender (they'll puff up a bit), about 20 minutes. Return the chicken to the pot in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Taste and add additional salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

YUM!