Chicken Paprika

This dish has become a new holiday favorite.  My stepmom makes it for us when she comes down at the holidays!  In fact, it's what we had for Thanksgiving dinner.  My husband and I want to find a quicker way to make it so we can enjoy it more often, perhaps with boneless chicken breasts.

 

Chicken Paprika with Spatzle

1 3 - 3.5 lb cut up fryer

1/2 C flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 C butter

1 Large chopped onion

2 Tbsp paprika

1 C chicken broth

1 C light cream

1/2 C sour cream

In bag, shake chicken in flour, 1 tsp salt, and pepper 'til coated. Save 2 Tbsp flour. Brown chicken in butter, pour off fat, but return 3 Tbsp to skillet. Saute onion 10 minutes or so. Add paprika, 1/2 tsp salt, and broth. Bring to boil, lower heat. Add chicken, turning to coat. Cook, covered, 30 minutes or 'til tender. Remove chicken. Stir in cream. Make paste of saved 2 Tbsp flour and sour cream. Slowly stir into pan. Cook, without boiling, 'til thick. Add chicken. Serve over spatzle.

Spatzle

3 C sifted flour

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp white pepper

3 eggs, beaten

1 C water

1/4 C melted butter

Combine flour, salt, and pepper in medium bowl. Make well in center. Add eggs and water and mix thoroughly. Scoop up dough onto spatula or lage spoon and cut off small pieces with a knife directly into a boiling pot of salt water. As dough bits rise, scoop off with a slotted spoon. Place in covered bowl with melted butter and keep warm as the rest cooks.

{Water}

Today was all about the water: a trip to the aquarium, a walk on the beach, coming home and taking a bubble bath with a book. I love these murals on the sea wall in Galveston. It was overcast and breezy today, a bit warm and humid. We hadn't had a free Saturday in months and enjoyed the sense of, well, freedom to take off and have a mini-adventure for the day. Have you had any mini-adventures lately?

Small Victories

My quest to lighten the load in our home continues. Earlier this year, I did something I never thought I would do: recycle 10 years (!!!) of Martha Stewart Living magazines, including duplicates that I'd picked up at library sales. I lost count around 165 copies. I had recycled many other periodicals that I'd been hanging on to, but for some reason felt compelled to save the MSL ones as reference materials. As it turned out, once I actually sat down and started going through them (absolutely no idea how I had the time for this), there ended up being very little that I actually needed to save. I clipped craft projects and a few recipes to save, and that was that. I couldn't help but think about how much MSL and other home magazines are so very much like fairy tales for adults: perfect home, amazing dinners with beautiful friends, clutter-free rooms. I think they reflect the way we want our lives to be more than reflect how they actually are. As a reader and former library employee, I adore magazines, but I have had to stop some subscriptions just to slow the flow of stuff into the house. It also seems that many magazines just don't have nearly as much content as they once did - edited down for quicker reads for today's busy people. Of course, I still receive some mags, and I still have some piles sitting around that need to find their way to the blue bin...

Tying up Some Fun

I don't have a lot of time for craft projects these days, but I had a tie-dye kit that had been sitting in my closet for years and finally decided to put it to use. A friend and I dyed onesies and little t-shirts for the wee ones in our lives. We also used Rit liquid dye in buckets to make easy versions of the ombre clothing in stores this spring. Our favorites were the ones with the top third dyed blue, the middle left white, and the bottom third dyed green. In the wash, the dyes ran enough to dye the middle white section a lighter bluegreen. Easy fun!

Now it's time to get back to laundry and dishes...

Icy Gardens

It's been a weird winter in south Texas - many days warmer than average (mid-70s and humid today - blech) but we've also had many freeze warnings. I haven't been out with the camera much in the past few months, but I couldn't resist this frozen puddle in the backyard with the ornamental pear leaf encased within. It made me happy to see ice in the backyard, happy to find icicles hanging off of my truck one morning - I love chilly weather. I know that increasingly warm temps are just around the corner, along with decisions to make about what to do in the garden (keeping it simple this year, as I repeatedly learn that I don't have the energy in a Houston summer to tend a garden effectively), decisions to make about traveling in order to escape the heat for awhile. What decisions are ahead of you right now?