Martinsville!

Today’s NASCAR race is at Martinsville, VA. I tried to find a traditional dish from the area, but it was mostly ham, and traditional southern country cooking. My favorite southern dish is chicken and dumplings. I have had it many ways, but Cracker Barrel still is the best in my book! I looked up many copycat recipes, but nothing was the same. I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. I remembered watching Unwrapped on food network, and they showed how the dish was made. The chicken is chicken tenders, whole, and the dumplings are rolled and boiled, not wet batter dropped into the pot. I saw they boil the dumplings and then add in the chicken later on. They also said they make the dumplings the size of a sugar packet. I think I did a pretty good job at replicating! For the sides, I chose the 2 sides I always get there, carrots and fried okra. I made oven fried okra though, instead. Since okra is naturally sticky, it holds the breadcrumbs very well!
Enjoy the race; let’s hope Jimmie Johnson can 4-peat!

Chicken and Dumplings, Oven Fried Okra, Sweet Baby Carrots

Chicken and Dumplings
Chicken and Sauce:
½ lb. chicken tenders
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup 2% milk
1 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
Dumplings:
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
½ cup skim milk


Heat a dutch oven over medium high, add butter and flour, whisk to cook flour, add stock and milk, bring to a rolling bubble. Add in salt and pepper, slide in chicken. Cover and turn to low.
Bring a large pot of water (half full) to a boil.
Combine all dumpling ingredients in a bowl, mix together with a fork. Turn out and roll. Use a pizza cutter and create sugar packet size dumplings. Drop in the boiling water, keep at a high boil (be careful it doesn’t boil over, it will foam) and boil for 10 minutes.
Gently transfer into dutch oven with chicken tenders. Keep on low, uncovered, to thicken and reduce.
Allow it to simmer while preparing other ingredients, taste for seasoning adjustments.



Oven Baked Okra
1 bag of frozen cut okra, thawed
½ cup Italian style breadcrumbs
½ cup panko breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a large bowl, toss okra with breadcrumbs and salt and pepper. Arrange on a baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown.



Sweet Baby Carrots


2 cups baby carrots
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. honey


Place steamer basket in a pot with 1/2” of water. Bring to a boil and steam carrots for 15 minutes.
Take basket out of the pot. Turn heat off. Add the butter and honey to the pot, let it melt and add carrots back, toss to combine.

The most beautiful chicken tenders I've ever seen in my whole life!

Cutting the dumplings to sugar packet size