comfort food on a rainy day

today was a dreary rainy day and i wanted nothing more than to sit at home with my kitties and sew all day long.  but instead, i went to work, like a responsible person, and have spent the evening working on a paper that’s due in my class tomorrow night.  about halfway through this morning, i saw a recipe for chicken and biscuits and was immediately reminded of that wonderful comfort food that my mom used to cook for us.  hers always had chicken, peas, onions, and green peppers in a sort of white gravy base and we would eat it on top of fresh baked biscuits, split in half.  I’m not super crazy about the flavor of cooked green peppers and mr. happy stuff isn’t super crazy about the flavor of peas, so i decided to adjust the recipe to suit our tastes.  i used onions, chopped zucchini and chicken in the same creamy base sauce (it’s in the more-with-less cookbook on page 186.  my mom still had the page number memorized.  love her.) and served it on top of homemade biscuits.  i used a recipe from my own recipe card book that was written in my own handwriting, but that i haven’t baked in years.  i had a vague memory of being very disappointed in that biscuit recipe, but i wanted to try them one more time before discarding the recipe card just in case i was wrong.  i think i was wrong.  the biscuits were delicious.  perhaps my baking skills have improved since my last biscuit attempt?  we managed to devour half of the biscuits i made.  let’s not think about how many tablespoons of butter that’s equal to, okay?  it was so yummy and so hit the spot for me.  hooray for the return of comfort food season!

here’s the recipes in case you want to try this at your house:

biscuits

3 c. flour

2.5 tbsp. sugar

4.5  tsp. baking powder

3/4  tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. cream of tartar

3/4 c. butter

3/4 c. milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

preheat oven to 425.  combine dry ingredients.  cut in the butter until it looks like coarse meal.  stir in the egg and milk.  turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly (4-5 strokes).  pat to 3/4″ thick, cut into rounds.  bake 10-15 minutes.  makes 12.  excellent when served with honey.

creamed chicken

1/4 c. butter

1 onion, chopped

2 small or one medium zucchini, chopped

1/4 c. flour

2 c. chicken broth

1 c. milk

salt and pepper to taste

2-3 c. cooked diced chicken

melt the butter in a medium saucepan.  when it’s melted, add the onion and zucchini and saute until they’re soft.  add the flour and “cook until bubbly” (not sure what this means, but that’s how the recipe’s written and maybe it will mean something to you), then add the broth, milk, salt and pepper.  stir constantly until the mixture thickens.  add chicken and serve over warm biscuits.