Yes Virginia, Your Tagine Can Make Chicken and Dumplings!

Chicken and dumplings! My Mom used to make huge pans of this age-old country fave when I was a kid.
It was cheap, filling, and so damn full of country flavour that it's practically obscene. Mom was feeding a raft of kids.  SB and I are on our own these days. This recipe is dramatically downsized and the dumplings were jazzed up a bit.

The dumplings I made last evening were chock full of green herbs and grated cheese.  Boneless chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots (lots of carrots), onions, celery, and thick, goopy gravy! A convenient step up from Mom's in that there were no chicken bones to pick around, but just as cheap, just as good, and the skeleton of Mom's recipe is intact. Thanks Mom!

Pub Food - Beef in Stout with Herb Dumplings

Sunday Supper never looked so good ...

Tuscan Malfatti or ... Making Gnocchi

Last night's dinner was one more for my culinary bucket list. Making a good batch of gnocchi has always been a goal, but I was intimidated by the dough and the cooking process. To boot, when I did some research, I learned that there are a bunch of different gnocchi recipes out there and all sorts of combinations of flours and cheese and vegetable additions that can make these soft little dumpling -like bites so different from each other! When I Googled 'gnocchi', I found out that they are usually served as a first course, but I was planning them as a main dish. I also discovered that they can be served in different ways - dressed with a variety of tomato sauces, in soup broths, or tossed with herbed butters. My goal initially was just to be successful in making them and if I failed, we were going to go out to a restaurant to salvage the dinner hour. So ... here's my 'making gnocchi' story.