Globecooking recipe : Chicken with dumplings (USA)

In the midst of a #KitchenClearout, I came across the end of a box of American Bisquick baking mix - basically flour with added raising agent - and decided to go looking for a way to use it up. I've already used it in a few recipes for cakes and cookies with varying results, so I decided to try a US recipe this time to see if it would work better. When I saw a recipe for Bisquick chicken and dumplings on The Weary Chef blog, it leapt out at me for two reasons - firstly, I liked the idea of a savoury recipe and secondly, it reminded me of the Newfoundland Pea Soup and Dough Boys (dumplings) that I made a few weeks ago. I made quite a few changes to the original recipe but it still came out delicious - a definite family-friendly winter warmer. It's a one pot wonder too so there is very little washing up afterwards (apart from the hob - see below !).

Chicken with dumplings

ingredients :

a pack of chicken breasts

2 onions

drizzle of olive oil

2 potatoes

herbs and spices of your choice : I used garlic salt, black pepper, white pepper, rosemary, thyme

1 cup frozen peas

1 cup frozen carrots

chicken or beef stock

1 cup Bisquick (or flour)

1/3 cup milk

sprinkle of rock salt with rosemary (optional)

Heat the oil in a pan and gently fry the onions until they go soft but don't take on any colour.

Chop up the chicken breast and add to the pot. Season with salt and black pepper. Cook until the chicken is completely white - don't worry if it's not totally cooked through as it will continue to cook in the stock.

Chop the potatoes (I didn't bother peeling them) into medium-sized chunks and add to the pot.

Add whatever herbs and spices you have in your cupboard.

I used up a sachet of Irish stew seasoning, which contained white pepper, garlic, fennel,chilli, rosemary and thyme.

Add enough chicken or beef stock to cover all the ingredients.

I found the end of a squeezy tube of instant beef gravy in the cupboard and used that up but a regular stock cube would do the job just fine.

Leave to simmer for 10 minutes until the potatoes are pretty much cooked then add the frozen veg. You could, of course, use fresh if you prefer. Leave the pot to simmer for another 10 minutes while you make the dumplings.

This is the Bisquick that I was using up.

Add the milk and stir to create a dough.

I added a shake of rosemary rock salt for extra flavour.

 Now, if you click through to my recipe for Pea Soup with Dough Boys, you will see that I had a problem with the dumplings soaking up too much liquid and making the soup stick to the bottom of the pan and burning. Therefore, this time around, I filled the pot up to the top with extra hot water before plopping in spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture.

This successfully avoided the drying out/sticking to the bottom of the pan problem, but it did lead to the sauce bubbling over the top of the pan when I put the lid on which resulted in a major hob clean-up job afterwards. I'll leave you to choose which is the lesser of two evils !

So, as I was saying, plop spoonfuls of dumpling mix into the sauce, press down into the liquid, turn down the heat to a gentle simmer and pop on a lid.

 Leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes until the dumplings swell up and rise to the surface. You might need to press them down in the liquid to help them cook halfway through the process.

Sorry for the blurry photo - it was steaming and the kids didn't want to wait for it to cool down before I took a photo for the blog. Always the sign of a popular dish !

*** Don't miss my country-by-country globecooking recipe index ! ***

Fancy trying some more American dishes? How about Hoppin' John & Collards (South Carolina), Cheeseburger Pie, Minnesotan Hotdish, Monterey chicken, New York Baked Cheesecake or Parmesan Chicken Breast ?

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky because it used up a box of Bisquick, a sachet of Irish stew seasoning and a tube of instant gravy.

Book review : Jack and Jill - James Patterson

Jack and Jill is the third novel featuring Detective Alex Cross, and the first that I have read in the series, but that didn't stop me wholeheartedly enjoying it. It has made me want to go back and read the other books in the series, but this will be a long job as it currently comprises twenty five novels, as well as three film adaptations.

To be able to carry that number of titles, Alex Cross is obviously going to be a complex and intriguing character. He is a widowed father, whose elderly but sassy grandmother lives with them. His parents passed away when he was young and we get the sense that he cherishes both generations of his family above all else. His partner, John Sampson, is Alex's childhood friend, so he fits right into the Cross family unit seamlessly.

As part of the black community, both detectives are hit particularly hard by the violent murder of a little Afro-American girl. Making things even worse, her body was discovered just yards from the school that the Cross children go to. When a second child is murdered, Alex wants to go all out to find the brutal killer. 

However, the head honchos have different ideas, wanting Alex to focus on another series of killings simultaneously being carried out on the other side of Washington DC, this time targetting the city's rich and famous. Chilling notes left with the murder victims suggest that there are two killers working in tandem : "Jack and Jill came to The Hill, to kill, to kill, to kill ..." What has the people in high places in a flap is that Jack and Jill are the code names given to the President and the First Lady. It soon becomes apparent not only that the presidential couple are the ultimate targets, but also that the murderers have an awful lot of inside information, so Alex can't even trust the inner circle of the President's supposed allies.

It's a fast-paced, gripping game of cat and mouse, with the killers thoroughly enjoying playing with the police, Secret Service and FBI and Alex tearing out his hair, trying to keep everyone safe. My only criticism would be that there were too many killers for one novel - although I understand the rationale of the child killer plot, as it shows how Alex is torn between  two investigations that deserve his complete attention, I did feel that the secondary investigation was insufficiently developed and could have had a whole lot more impact if it had been the main crime. Similarly, I did find it hard to keep track of who was who in the main investigation, given all the aliases and double identities being uncovered in rapid succession. 

It was still a great book though and kept me up past my bedtime on several occasions !

star rating : 4.5/5

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; New edition edition (4 Oct. 2004) (first published in September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006493122
• ISBN-13: 978-0006493129
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 2.6 x 17.8 cm

New Year Resolutions Review week #5 : And we're into February !

Another week, another roundup of how I'm getting on (or not) with my New Year challenges. 

1. Get Fit(bitting) !

Another week of hitting my step target (the recommended 10,000 steps per day) every single day ... except for today, when I got home after a Saturday morning at work for open day, followed by a trip to McDonald's then a quick shopping trip to buy a second hand laptop for Juliette for her birthday (so she can stop pinching mine !) and promptly fell asleep for two hours ! Oh well, I obviously needed it and I've still got a few hours to get in my missing steps. Fourteen days at 10k steps so it would be a shame to break the record now !

2. Get cooking bookmarked recipes ! 

Lots more decluttering in the kitchen cupboards, using up ends of bottles and jars. I made Lemon Cranberry Muffins and No-Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake, which were both bookmarked #readcookeat recipes, as well as Korvapuusti, Finnish cinnamon buns from last month's Kitchen Trotter Box.

3. Get geocaching !

I didn't get out geocaching but I did search out and print some log books to put into some geocaches of our own. I also went looking for travelbugs on amazon and ebay to put in some of our caches but they're quite expensive. Hiding our own caches is definitely on the cards during the school holidays in a week's time.

4. Get comping !

In my New Year's challenges, I said that I wanted to try to up my winnings by entering more creative competitions. I've only found one so far - a photo competition from Ambrosia with loads of prizes - and I won a set of six trifle glasses. That takes my total of January wins to four, after my £20 shopping voucher, set of books and Mr Lee's noodles, which is fab, as I was aiming for one win per month !

5. Get reading !

 I finished one gripping thriller, James Patterson's Jack and Jill, which I haven't had a chance to review yet, and started another, Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben.

6. Get FLYing !

Erm nope ... I didn't even look at the missions this week. I did get a few things done that were niggling me though, like reorganising the kitchen cupboards and cleaning the bathroom mirror !

8. Get bloggy housekeeping !

My visitor stats haven't changed but my klout score is falling through the floor - I need to find time to get chattier on twitter which should sort that out !

9. Get French !

My empty criminal record finally arrived. I haven't had time to go to the post office and buy my "timbre fiscal" yet though but it's on the cards for next week.

What about you? Have you set yourself any targets, challenges or new year's resolutions this year?

Madhouse recipe : Peking duck with noodles

As I mentioned on last week's menu plan, I have been going through the cupboards having a good #KitchenClearout, hunting out recipes for using up things that have been lurking in there for far too long. One such item was a bag of Vietnamese crispy pancake mix. I headed to google for inspiration and came across a million recipes for crispy duck, also known as Peking duck, 99% of which involved slow cooking duck then shredding it pulled pork-style, dousing it in plum or hoisin sauce and serving it in pancakes with cucumber and spring onions. This is apparently hugely popular in Chinese restaurants in the UK but it's not something I've ever tried (in France there are lots of Vietnamese restaurants but very few Chinese ones, which may explain why !). This didn't appeal to Madhouse Daddy and I couldn't get hold of any spring onions so I decided to change tack and look for French (or Vietnamese in French) recipes. I found one for "canard laqué" which is the most popular Oriental duck dish in France, and when I went to find a translation, I discovered that it's ... Peking duck ! This time, it's not necessarily served with the pancakes, cucumber and spring onions though, so I served it with stir-fried veggies and noodles. I didn't get to use up my crispy pancake mix but I did clear out lots of other odds and ends.

Most of the recipes I found said to roast a whole duck for 2-3 hours minimum or duck breasts for about half an hour, sprinkling them with lots of salt and Chinese five spice. However, the duck breasts that Madhouse Daddy brought back from the supermarket said that they should be cooked for 5 minutes on each side and not to add salt. As they were labelled "magret de canard", I returned to google for elucidation and learned that magret de canard translates as duck breast but, as it is a by-product of force-fed ducks from foie gras, it is a much richer and fattier version than the duck breasts you buy in the UK. Yuck, I never knew that ! Oh well, they were in my fridge by this time so it was too late to take the moral high ground.

This is only the second time I've ever eaten duck but it came out really well and really complemented the rich flavours of the Oriental glaze.

Peking duck with noodles

ingredients :

1 or 2 duck breasts

3tbsp Hoisin sauce 

1tbsp black rice vinegar

1tbsp runny honey

1/2tsp Chinese five spice

noodles

stir-fried veggies (onions, carrots, red pepper, bamboo shoots, mangetout, ...)

Use a sharp knife to make deep cuts through the skin/fat and into the meat, to help the marinade penetrate. Sprinkle over the Chinese five spice.

Combine all the marinade ingredients in a small bowl and stir vigorously. I was using up the ends of bottles of hoisin sauce and black rice vinegar so this was all I could make, but you could go for double quantities if you want a richer flavour and more sauce.

You could leave the meat to rest in the marinade for a couple of hours but as I was short on time, I just poured it over the duck breasts halfway through the cooking process. Start by cooking the duck in a hot pan skin side down for 6-7 minutes until the skin is going crispy and the pan is full of fat. Drain off the fat but keep this for making Nigella Lawson-esque roast potatoes at a later date ! Return the meat to the pan skin side up and pour over the marinade, making sure it gets into all the slits. 

Cook for however long it takes to reach your desired level of rareness - for us, that was 6-7 minutes then an extra 2 minutes flipped back over to the skin side for the glaze to go gooey, so that it still stayed sightly pink in the middle. Leave to rest on a plate for 10-15 minutes before serving.

I had a pot of Spicy Szechuan noodles lurking in the cupboard (basically a posh pot noodle !) from a Degustabox so I decided to use that, along with a bag of Chinese-style stir fry veggies.

Cook the veggies then stir through the prepared noodles. I didn't need to add seasoning as there was already flavourings in the noodle pot but you could add a splash of soy sauce or your favourite Oriental sauce.

Slice the duck into strips or serve as a whole or half breast, along with the noodles and vegetables.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up ends of bottles of hoisin sauce and black rice vinegar, as well as the noodle pot.

What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 3/2

It's the last week before the holidays but it's going to be a killer, with parent-teacher evenings on Tuesday and Thursday so I won't get home until about 9pm - boo ! I think it will be either a case of freezer diving by Madhouse Daddy or I'll be putting the slow cooker to good use !

Saturday

lunch - time for our traditional Saturday morning trip to McDonald's to ease into the weekend

dinner - Vietnamese crispy crêpes - with veggies and meat in the pan, then you pour the pancake batter over the top so it all cooks in the batter rather than as a filling

Sunday

lunch - roast dinner

dinner -  sandwich or chicken soup with the carcass from lunch, if we had chicken

Monday 

dinner - bacon & lentil stew with the leftover roast potatoes and chicken thrown in

Tuesday 

dinner - hopefully leftovers from yesterday

Wednesday 

lunch - spaghetti carbonara

dinner - cheesy chicory bake (or endives au gratin as they're called in France)

Thursday 

dinner - pork stew in the slow cooker as long as I was organised the day before !

Friday  

dinner - sweet potato fries with grilled chicken in BBQ sauce

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Join in with the weekly meal plan bloghop !

An InLinkz Link-up

#readcookeat recipe : Lemon Cranberry Muffins (A Long Ways From Home)

Hold on to your waistbands ! After trying out a multitude of healthy fish-based dishes inspired by the meals mentioned in Mike Martin's A Long Ways From Home (click through for my review), I've moved on to the sweet treats and, if there's one thing Sgt. Windflower loves as much as his beloved Sheila, it's dessert ! After his favourite Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake, I opted for a slightly less decadent but equally tasty option, Lemon Cranberry Muffins :

p208 Lyn handed him a cup of coffee and offered him a homemade muffin from a tin. Windflower took both and had a bite of the muffin.

"Very good," he said to the receptionist. "Lemon cranberry, my favourite. Did you make these?"

Lemon Cranberry Muffins

ingredients :

175g dried cranberries

280g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

50g coconut oil

75g butter spread/margarine/softened butter

a pinch of salt

a squeeze of lemon juice + 1tsp lemon zest or 2tsp lemon extract

3tbsp lemon curd

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

120ml milk

1 bar (200g) white chocolate

Cream together the coconut oil/butter/margarine and the sugar.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the salt and lemon juice/zest/extract.

Mix in the flour/baking powder in three parts, alternating with the milk in two parts. Stir through the lemon curd.

Pour in the dried cranberries and gently fold them into the batter.

Pour into silicon muffin trays - I got 18 reasonable sized ones.

Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes until a sharp knife stabbed in the middle comes out clean. 

Melt the white chocolate and drizzle it over the tops when they have cooled.

Fancy cooking the books? Head over to the #readcookeat challenge over at Chez Maximka.

Giveaway #608 : Win 2 x The White King on dvd - closed - winners Spencer Broadley, Tracey Peach

Based on the critically acclaimed, award-winning novel by György Dragomán, The White King, set in a fictitious dictatorship, can be described as 1984 meets Empire of the Sun with its startling and “all-too-timely” exploration of what the world would, and could, look like. It also portrays life under an oppressive regime and how this impacts each and every person in different ways.

Djata is a 12-year-old boy coming to grips with his father's imprisonment by the totalitarian state he calls home. Preyed upon by the secret police and venal dignitaries, Djata and his mother are forced to navigate a world of propaganda, abuse and vicious gangs, making them risk everything to reunite their family.

The White King stars Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones), Agyness Deyn (Sunset Song), Greta Scacchi (War & Peace), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The BFG), Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter) and, in an vocal cameo, Olivia Williams (Maps to the Stars) and introduces Lorenzo Allchurch in the lead role. Written and directed by Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel from the novel by György Dragomán.

The White King is out now on DVD & Digital from Signature Entertainment

I have two copies of the DVD to give away to lucky Madhouse Family Reviews readers. Fill in your entries via the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 16/2/17

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray !

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

Giveaway #607 : Win 2 x Phantom Boy on dvd - closing date 15/2

#KitchenClearout January roundup and February linky

January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow ... but despite the subzero temperatures, we had a plethora of winter warmers to keep out the chill this month. There were lots of healthy veggie options too, probably as a reaction to all the festive over-eating last month !

Alison from Dragons and Fairy Dust kicked off this month's selection with a fabulously warming and totally seasonal Parsnip  & Cauliflower Soup.

Green Thai Curry Stir Fry was a great way of using up a pouch of cooking sauce that had been lurking at the back of the cupboard for months because I thought it would be really hot (but it wasn't !) as well as the odds and ends from the veggie drawer of the fridge.

Triple Layer Vegetarian Lasagne was a #readcookeat recipe that I wanted to try and I took advantage to have a good clearout in the freezer, using up two packs of root veg fries and a bag of green veg puree.

Galina from Chez Maximka showed us all what to do with that pot of powdered mustard that I'm sure we all have lurking in the spice rack (I know I do anyway !) with this fabulous roast beef with brown sugar, rum and mustard glaze.

It's cheap, filling, tasty and cleared out the veg box in the fridge as well as using up the leftovers from the Sunday roast - Lentil, Bacon & Veg Stew got a big thumbs up from the Madhouse family.

Galina introduced us all to a variation on cheesecake with this Italian Torta di Ricotta - it looks delicious and used up part of a bag of sultanas.

I always love popping over to see what Jane at Onions and Paper has come up with because we always seem to have the same kinds of things lurking in the fridge and the kitchen cupboard ! Her Fakeaway Soft Noodles with Bean Sprouts looks delicious and used up half a bag of bean sprouts but could use up a multitude of leftovers too.

Another #readcookeat recipe that ended up using lots of odds and ends of packets and jars, West African Chicken Plasa (also known as Chicken Palaver) used up an end of a jar of peanut butter, some molokheya powder, some leftover cooked spinach and a bag of gado gado peanut sauce.

Bacon, Leek & Porcini Mushroom Risotto may not have been totally authentic because I didn't have the right rice, but it did use up some dried porcini mushrooms, a small tub of rice and the end of a bottle of white cooking wine.

Makowiec is a Polish poppyseed roll which used up  lots of odds and ends from my baking cupboard (dried fruit, sunflower seeds, jujube powder, orange extract, vanilla grinder, ...).

Alison at Dragons and Fairy Dust shared a lovely recipe for Sesame Chicken - so lovely in fact that it made we want to make it but I've just managed to use up my sesame seeds so I really should resist the temptation to go out and buy more !

Savoury Palmiers were a total mishmash of ends of jars from the fridge - relish, marinated vegetables, tuna ... you name it, it can probably go in there !

No Bake Peanut Butter Cheesecake used up two ends of jars of peanut butter - I was sure there was another one but putting together this round up, I now realise I used it for the Chicken Plasas ! - and some stale cereal for the crumb base. But most importantly, it was delicious !

Fancy joining in? Have a rummage through your kitchen cupboards, spice rack, freezer or fridge and see if there's anything that needs using up then come and share your creations with us. Or if it's way past its sell-by date, throw it in the bin and come and tell us what you found ! It would be great if you could add my badge and a link to this post for anyone else who wants to get involved.