Chicken and Dumplings

For Lisa....your kids are as picky as mine when it comes to eating, and my kids love this. I'm pretty sure I got it from my grandmother's recipe box. It's fairly low in fat and calories...BUT probably not sodium. I cheat a little from the original recipe because I HATE deboning a whole chicken, and don't have time for things like that. The original recipe calls for a whole chicken....I just use 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts and a few boneless thighs.
Broth:
chicken breasts and thighs as described above
2 cups water
6 cups chicken broth, divided
1 carrot, chopped finely in a food processor so my kids will eat it
2 stalks of celery, also chopped finely in the food processor
1 small onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Dumplings:
2 cups All-Purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 T. shortening or REAL butter, shortening works better tho
1 cup or more of buttermilk

Directions:
1. Place the chicken, carrots, celery, and onion in a large pot with water and 4 cups of the broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for about an hour.
2. Towards the end of the hour, begin making the dumplings...combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until all ingredients are mixed well. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until it resemble a course meal. Add the buttermilk and stir until moistened. Get the chicken out of the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Keep broth warm and covered.
3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and kneed 4-5 times then roll out into a 1/4" thickness. I use a pizza cutter to cut the dumplings rather than tear them...into about 2" squares. You can make them bigger if you want, don't go too much smaller tho or they will fall apart while they cook.
4. Bring the broth in pot back to a boil and and remaining chicken broth (2 cups), then turn heat to around medium to keep at a simmer. Drop dumplings into broth, a few at a time and stir after each addition. When done adding dough, stir again, reduce heat to medium low and cook, covered, for about 1o minutes.
5. While the dumplings are cooking, shred the chicken into bite size pieces with a fork and add back to the dumplings and broth in the pot and heat through. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

BBQ Meatloaf

For Ashley....my MIL's BBQ meatloaf recipe. I think the first time I heard the words BBQ and meatloaf, I grossed out a little. In my mind, we'd be dumping BBQ sauce on a dried up "loaf" of meat. But this is probably the best meatloaf I've ever had. I'm not sure where she got the recipe originally, but it doesn't matter, it still tastes good. When I make it here, I serve it with homemade mashed potatoes that I whip with mayo and butter (yes sounds gross but its my super southern grandma's recipe and it rocks), and some extremely over-cooked southern green beans (you know the kind with bacon drippings). The whole meal is probably high in fat, sodium and all kinds of bad stuff....but it's good for the soul.
You will need:
1.5 lbs of lean ground beef
1/2 cup of plain bread crumbs OR 2 packs of plain instant oatmeal
1 medium onion, finely chopped and sauteed in some cooking spray
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. of salt
3- 15 oz. cans of tomato sauce
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1-2 T. yellow mustard
4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

To put it all together: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray. Mix raw beef, bread crumbs (or oatmeal), onion, egg, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/4 of one of the cans of tomato sauce in a bowl. Make sure it's even throughout. Form ingredients into a "loaf" shape and put into the center of your casserole dish.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix well. You may have to adjust the vinegar and mustard to your taste a little at a time. Pour the sauce over the meat loaf in the dish.
3. Bake for 1.5-2 hours, basting occasionally. We use the extra sauce on the meatloaf as a gravy to go over the potatoes. Enjoy!