Tim McGraw's Chicken and Dumplings

Hallelujah! I have converted you to the True Religion of Cornbread!! No sugar, no soft fluffy cake, just that Good Old Fashioned Cornbread.

You mentioned Faith Hill and her Cornbread, so I thought of her husband Tim McGraw. I read an article recently that said he made his grandmother’s Chicken and Dumplings for Faith Hill back in the days when they were dating. It must have been good stuff–she married him!

His hit song, “Live Like You Are Dying,” is a good description of life in general, and his Chicken and Dumplings in particular. You need to savor this homey dish for who knows when you may eat it again.

Despite that Scots-Irish name of McGraw, these dumplings have a German noodle touch to them. I grew up with biscuit dough as dumplings, and I won’t tell you how many times my dumplings turned out to be sodden blobs of dough instead of light, fluffy dumplings. Tim’s are certainly easier.

Tim McGraw’s Grandmother’s Chicken and Dumplings:

1 small chicken
Water
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons Crisco butter shortening
½ cup buttermilk
1 egg

Boil the chicken in a large Dutch Oven pot with salted water until the chicken is falling off the bones. Remove chicken from the broth and when cool, tear into small pieces. Return chicken–sans bones–to the broth.

Pour the flour into a bowl, leaving a hole in the middle. Add the egg and enough buttermilk to make a biscuit dough consistency. Sprinkle flour on a cutting board, and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll out fairly thin and cut in to squares. Carefully drop one square at a time into the boiling broth. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until the dumplings are tender. The dumplings will thicken the broth until it is a creamy consistency.

Faith Hill's Cornbread

Erma, I’ll have to pass on those Shania Twain recipes to Mel. He does make a mean apple pie. No, that’s not right. His wife bakes a mean apple pie. Still not right. His wife bakes lots of mean apple pies. Like a dozen a day. Every day. All year long. Year after year.

And she must like Shania Twain. Or at least Mel plays her music a lot at the Diner.

Another Mel’s Country Music Special at the Diner is Faith Hill’s Easy Country Cornbread.
I just noticed that Mel’s favorite recipes and singers are all good looking female singers. Wonder if there is some connection here?

Anyway, this is Southern Cornbread as you taught me to like it Erma. I know that you throw up your hands in horror at the thought of The Sacred Cornbread being served like a soft, sweet cake. I don’t know if Faith Hill is a “Mississippi Girl’ or not, but she must be from way below the Mason-Dixon Line as her Cornbread is definitely Southern in taste and presentation. Faith must have had a grandmother like yours with a heavy, black cast iron skillet.

Mel often brings this Cornbread to the table straight out of the oven. You know what he looks like in his white apron. Imagine that big guy carrying a heavy black skillet with potholders, and then flipping out a giant cake of yellow cornbread on your plate. It just cries for a slathering of butter.

“There You’ll Be” with a piece of buttered cornbread in “Sunshine and Summertime.” Or Wintertime. Or Falltime.

Faith Hill’s Easy Country Cornbread:

3 tablespoons Crisco Butter Shortening
1 ½ cups Martha White Yellow Cornmeal Mix
1 egg
1 ½ cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place the Crisco in an iron skillet and melt the shortening in the oven.

In a mixing bowl, mix egg, cornmeal mix and buttermilk. Pour the melted shortening into the mixture, leaving a small amount in the skittle so the bread will not stick. Stir in the shortening. Sprinkle a bit of dry cornmeal mix in the skillet and then pour in the cornbread mixture. Bake at 500 degrees until golden brown.

EAT AT ONCE!!

Make up your favorite recipe for 6 muffins

That is a real helpful recipe, Erma. “Make up your favorite recipe for 6 muffins.” I know, you don’t measure either, when you fix cornbread. I will have to try it though. Cheese and fresh corn would be an interesting addition to corn bread.

Here is something from one of my grandmothers. She used to make this Pasta Shell Salad for a Crowd to take to family reunions, only she used regular macaroni. I don’t think shell pasta was around in her day.

Pasta Shell Salad for a Crowd:

1 16 ounce package shell macaroni
4 carrots, grated
2 green peppers, chopped
2 onions, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup vinegar
½ cup sugar
Paprika

Cook macaroni until al dente. Drain in a collander and rinse with cold water. Use a food processor to chop and grate all vegetables, and think to yourself how much faster and easier this is than the original recipe which hand chopped all of them. Mix vegetables and shell macaroni in large mixing bowl.

Whip the mayonnaise, condensed milk, sugar and vinegar in a small bowl. Stir into the macaroni with a large spatula. Chill overnight. When serving, sprinkle on paprika.

Serves 20

Cornbread Deluxe

You are absolutely correct, Max, Grandmother probably did add some bourbon to her Fried Green Apples. And, yes, she did have a shelf set aside for “spirits.” Only it wasn’t in her pantry where anybody could slip in and indulge. The “spirits” were on a top shelf in a kitchen cupboard, and no one, and I mean no one, ever messed in her kitchen. She probably knew to the exact drop how much was in each bottle.

She was a fantastic cook, and other than cakes, I never saw her use a recipe. Which is why I can only try and replicate what she cooked. This was one of her cornbread recipes. No one else I knew ever bothered to dress up cornbread at all.

Cornbread with Cheese and Fresh Corn:

Your favorite cornbread recipe made without eggs and sugar
½ cup grated yellow cheese, like Cheddar or Colby
1 cup fresh cut corn

Make up your favorite cornbread recipe for 6 muffins, but do not use eggs or sugar as this is not supposed to be sweet. Mix in the cheese and fresh cut corn.

Preheat your heavy corn muffin pan in a 400 degree oven. Take hot muffin pan from the over, spray with Pam, and instantly spoon in the cornbread mixture. The pan should be so hat that the bread begins to bake as you spoon it in. Return to oven and bake for 10 minutes or so. Tops of the muffins should be lightly browned, and the bottom crusts very brown. RUN the muffins from the pan straight to the table and eat.

For a bit of heaven, slice in half and slather with butter that will melt instantly.