Chicken (and Leek) and Dumplings

I love chicken and dumplings. Whenever I've made them though, they have turned out sort of ... meh. Nothing exceptional. Which would be ok, except whenever I've made them, I have spent way too much time in the kitchen for the lackluster result. 


Fast forward (do people still say that?) to tonight. I stumbled upon an easy, quick, and healthy approach to chicken and dumplings, based upon some of the randoms floating around in my fridge. The dumplings are half of a Mark Bittman recipe (again from the iPad app). My mom was over and said she really liked it (don't tell her there were leeks in there, she says she's not a fan). 

Chicken (and Leek) and Dumplings

Ingredients:

1-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 T. butter
2-3 medium carrots, diced
1 leek, dark green removed and sliced thin
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 qt chicken stock
4 allspice berries
1 bay leaf
1 t. dried thyme

1 c. flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
2 T. cold butter, chopped into little chunks
1/2 c. plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)

In a large dutch oven or pot, melt 2 T. butter. Add the carrots, leek, onion, and garlic, and saute over medium-low until veggies are soft. Deglaze with a bit of the stock, then stir in the rest of the stock, spices (with salt and pepper to taste). Bring to a boil and add the chicken. Reduce to a simmer and cover, cook 15 minutes. Remove chicken from pot, chop or shred, and return to pot.

When chicken is cooking, mix the flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a food processor until combined. Pulse in the butter until well combined. Add the yogurt and process just until the mixture balls up.

After re-adding the chicken to the pot, drop the biscuit dough into the pot. Try not to have the dough touch. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, and no peeking! The steam is what cooks the dumplings.

Tomato Leek Tart

Full Circle sent us another leek in this week's box. Up to now, I did not know anything to do with a leek besides potato leek soup (which I did with last week's leek). Yikes, what to do with this one? A quick internet search yielded that most people also made potato leek soup out of leeks. But I found a tomato leek tart recipe on allrecipes.com that sounded really good. I tweaked it a bit, but it is VERY good. Also, I thought the tomato-leek combination would be really good in a quiche if you are a quiche fan. Try it, and comment with your results.

Tomato Leek Tart

Ingredients:
1 refrigerated pie crust
1 leek (white/light green parts only), sliced thin
2 large roma tomatoes, sliced thin
4 slices provolone cheese
1/2 c. or so shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 c. or so shredded parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
garlic powder

Preheat oven to 425. Put a pizza stone in the oven to preheat (if you don't have one, you can substitute a cookie sheet sprayed with pam). Thinly slice the leek and tomatoes. Pull the stone from the oven and put the pie crust on it flat. In the middle portion of the crust, evenly spread the slices of provolone. Then evenly distribute the leeks and then the tomatoes (leave the outer 1.5-2 inches uncovered). Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. Spread the mozzarella and then the parmesan over the veggies. Fold up the edges of the crust (if you used a preheated stone, the fats in the crust will have made the crust pretty melty; use a thin spatula to help you with this if needed). Bake for 20 minutes, until crust and cheese are lightly browned.

Here's the finished product. Let 'er sit a couple minutes before you cut it to let the juices reabsorb.

This is what a leek looks like--green onion BEEFCAKE!

The top part went into the tart; the bottom part, the trash (or compost pile).

Tomatoes! Slice them up thin; I like a small serrated knife for this job.