In my last blog I included how wonderful and what a godsend slow cookers are. I sang their praises and said that they were so easy to use that it wasn't funny. Well, the second time was kinda funny...
By kinda funny I mean it was a total failure.
This is the first time I've tried making chicken and dumplings. It was more like a dumpling disaster with bits of chicken hanging around.
Let me back up and tell you the whole story.
My fiance has told me on several occasions that he loves chicken and dumplings. And I do, too, so I figure Why Not? I'll find a recipe and throw it in the slow cooker. What better way to cook it? It's going to be perfection!
So, I mention to my fiance's grandmother that I want to make chicken and dumplings and she tells me a recipe. Now, with the luck I have you think I'd write down everything, including the measurements and temperature, but NOPE! I tell myself 'Oh, yeah, I'll totally get this right' and just go with it. She hands me a few ingredients that I don't have on hand and I proceed home to piss into the wind.
I put into the slow cooker a can of chicken broth and a can of evaporated milk. Then I proceed to add flour until I get a thicker, gravy-like consistency. Once I have the perfect texture I realized that the pot is barely full. Odd, that won't feed everyone (like the cake pop story, we had our DND friends over). I decide to begin adding milk and flour til it's much fuller. The consistency is less gravy-like, but only slightly. I add my cut up chicken and pick apart canned biscuits for the dumplings, turn him on and let him cook, just like last time.
We leave for the day, going to visit some of his extended family I've never met before and ended up deciding that I like them. A good day a-visiting was had and we return home to a houseful of hungry yet happy friends and a savory smell lingering in the air. I go to my trusty slow cooker and find a bubbling swampland where monsters are surely lurking.
What the Hell? I don't recall making gruel. It's like sadness sauce with lumps of pity. I've concocted an evil potion brewed in the bowels of Hell that's presence is surely supposed to start the apocalypse.
How did it turn brown? I thought this was supposed to be a white gravy style dish? Is it even brown? Maybe it's gray. Or the color of depression. This is what it looks like when food just gives up on living and tasting good. My housemate says it was cooked it too long and should've been turned off a while ago. Really? Because it looks more like the Grim Reaper himself snuk into the kitchen and stuck his bony finger in it.
We decide to be brave and at least try it. My fiance make himself a little pizza first as a back up. I can't even be mad. I bravely scoop out a bowlful and seated myself at the kitchen table, crossed myself and whispered as much of the Hail Mary as I could remember just to be safe, and tried a spoonful.
Like the cake pops, it tasted better than it looked. It didn't taste as chickeny as it should have, but it didn't taste like gruel either. It was actually a little bland. It kind of tasted like how you would imagine the color white would taste.
I chalked this one up to a disaster and left the rest in the pot, deciding to throw it out tomorrow and let the post soak. I swear the slow cooker gave me a dirty look as I chose to let him set with the horrid contents inside of him until the next day. If he had hands he'd have used them to chuck a knife into my back as I heartlessly turned and walked away.
How could you do this to me!?
The next day I had trouble scraping the concoction out of the slow cooker. If he looked sad last night he was downright livid today. The strange evil potion had almost completely solidified into a poisonous cake like creature ready to eat our souls. This disaster is gonna be an all day soaker.
All in all, my first time attempting to cook chicken and dumplings was a complete disaster. I'm on the lookout for a new recipe so I may try again until I succeed. Oh joy.
-Tome Raider
