This Week's Menues with Notes and Recipes

Monday Chili w/Beans (make extra for freezer) Quick Corn Muffins* Tuesday - Meatless meal Spaghetti, sauce with green and red peppers, onions, eggplant Wednesday Soup, grilled cheese Thursday Chicken and Dumplings* Green salad Friday Ham and Lentil soup (crock pot) Crackers Saturday/Sunday Out of Town This week's Baking Gramma's "Mystery Cake"*

Notes and Recipes: Fall with it's cooler temperatures - low and mid 50's for most of the week - has hit here in Ohio. It's time to get cooking all those great meals we missed all summer - soups, stews, and chili! I love cornbread. I love frugal additions to my meals. Here's a recipe that answers both! Jiffy Cornbread mix is often on sale for .33 a box! These corn muffins are more "muffin" and less "bread" - and all good! Makes 6 - 8 muffins. Corn Muffins 1 pkg Jiffy corn bread mix 2 eggs 1 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla Mix according to package directions but use 2 eggs instead of one, and adding the sugar and vanilla. Bake according to box diretions. Let cool slightly before serving. Chicken and Dumplings - In my book (and it's an old, well-worn book, believe me!), the simpler the recipe, the better. And being a native New Englander, we love to just boil the be'jesus out of everything. So this recipe appealed to me right away! I found it on a great recipe blog called The Southern Plate. She gives a good step-by-step tutorial on how NOT to have your dumplings fall apart, so take a minute and check out her recipe. Ahhh...comfort food at its best!

Chicken and Dumplings 3 or 4 chicken breasts 32 oz Chicken Broth (feel free to use water with bouillon cubes added) 1 can cream of chicken soup 1-10 count can Pilsbury layers biscuits salt and pepper to taste flour Cook chicken breasts in approx. 4 c. of water until fork tender, about 45 minutes. Place broth in medium to large sized pot. Stir cream of chicken soup into gently boiling broth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pull biscuits apart into three layers. Dip each layer into flour and then tear each layer into three pieces and drop into gently boiling broth mixture. Do not stir biscuits a lot, or they will cook up, only gently push dumplings down into broth as they float to the top. Cook about ten minutes after last dumplings are added. Add shredded chicken and turn on low until ready to serve. added, Tear up chicken, add to broth mixture.Turn to low until ready to serve. Gramma's Mystery Cake: What's the mystery ingredient? Don't tell until after you serve it! This recipe will be published here on Wednesday of this week. Worth coming back for!