1. The Silver Valley woke up this morning to new snow, not quite two inches, I'd say, by morning's end. I didn't want to deal with shoveling deep snow, so, in case the snowfall continued through the day, I shoveled our driveway and sidewalks and also shoveled Christy and Everett's. I do fine shoveling shallow snow, but when snow gets deep, it can border on being too much for me. It was a good little workout and gave me some peace of mind.
2. With all the cooking I've been doing, I've been good about keeping up with cleaning the dishes I've used and keeping the countertops clean. But, I've neglected the stove, so today I gave the stove a good cleaning -- not only on the surface, but around the burners and also cleaned the dishwasher door and the refrigerator doors. To help make this task more pleasant and to slow myself down, I listened to Glenn Gould play numerous of Bach's Preludes and Fugues.
3. I was eager to cook up something with the chicken left over from last night. I also didn't want to make a trip to the store. So, I poured the leftover liquid from last night's braise into the Dutch oven and heated it up a little bit. I coarsely chopped carrots, an onion, a couple of potatoes, and bits of celery and took an already opened bag of frozen green beans out of the freezer. I tossed these vegetables into the liquid and simmered them until they began to get tender. I added shredded chicken to the pot and while it continued to simmer, I combined flour, baking powder, butter cut into chips, and milk in a bowl to make dumpling dough and before long I dropped balls of dough into my stew and let them simmer for about 10 minutes or so. I decided, after 10 minutes, that the stew needed some water. I brought the thinner stew back to a slow boil, reduced the heat to low again, put the lid on the Dutch oven and let the dumplings simmer for another 10 minutes or so in the covered pot.
In keeping with my efforts while home alone to try new things in the kitchen, I should add that I had never made dumplings before. Not only that, I haven't eaten them very often, but I love them. I really don't have a standard by which to determine if these were good dumplings. But, I liked them. The chicken stew was superb. The flavors of the vegetables and the tarragon from the night before had deepened and the chicken had remained moist and its flavor had also matured. Because I wanted to, I spent the entirety of this snowy chilly day by myself in the house and this meal was a perfect warming, filling, and most tasty companion.
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