This is one of those dishes that gets me super excited and begs me to tell you: make this now! Do not wait for this horrid rain to stop, do not wait for the end of your work day, do not wait for your vegetarian conscious to pipe up and remind you, you don’t eat meat. But I fear if I display this much fervor over a chicken dinner you will take my word less seriously, especially the next time another extraordinary recipe comes across these pages. So suffice it to say this frighteningly excellent recipe is what every chicken dish could be, or more correctly should be and is the perfect alternative to a disappointing spring market still lacking everything but the last withering remnants of winter’s offerings: root vegetables.

But if you will humor me for a moment and let me be far more dramatic than I am in everyday life, I would like to take this time to talk about how this, this southern deconstructed pot-pie like dish, can change your entire perspective on chicken. You see, this month I realized I only had nine recipes archived under poultry. Nine! And I don’t think I could pass off the impersonation of being vegetarian (ha ha ho ho, yeah right) even when there is an overwhelming dominance of vegetarian options (fifty-four!) categorized for you non-meat lovers. Now most of you following us into our fourth year here at the red spoon will know that I’ve griped and complained over chicken exactly nine times. Each time my opinion shifts as I recognize not all chicken has to be boring or mundane. Each time it gets better. Far better. But I think chicken and dumplings has irrevocably changed my views on chicken being dinner more than nine times in four years. In fact, it could be a weekly routine.

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It’s been a dreary, sopping, windy mess here on the outskirts of Washington D.C. as we snuggle ourselves indoors with mugs of hot chocolate and re-runs of Grey’s Anatomy Sesame Street. This Sandy Frankenstorm has been quite the ordeal. Unlike so many lining the East coast we were fortunate enough to escape the severe damage the storm brought. Our hearts go out to those of you less fortunate, and pray you and your love ones are safe and sound, tucked some place warm and dry.

In these past three weeks, before I was worrying about cramming myself through over populated grocery aisles or perhaps missing the first practiced steps, I was a working woman. I was pulling 45 hour work weeks (my pitiful excuse for being absent lately) that rung me dry of any desire to cook a hearty wholesome meal that this beautiful autumn so begs. It’s about time I get down to it I guess, after all the sun has peeked out today, shaming my knee high wool socks and flannel pajamas into more normal adult attire.

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I’ve disappeared on you and without excuse (because it involves exploding grenade, uhh, rainbows and projectile err, butterflies from a very sad little boy. And to think two days prior I was beginning to think my life was boring. Ha!) We’ve been battling some sick bugs around here, me with my tragic throat and Henry with his…sicknesses — and I use the term rather loosely. Sometimes telling yourself at ohmygawdearly a.m. that the large amounts of baby liquid that just erupted from every part of them (and thus down you and everything within a 5-foot radius) means they are sick (as in deathly sick) and helps you cope with the fact that there is no off valve. But as I’ve been clean for the last hour (thanks to that third nap of the day) I must admit, it was not sickness at all, just baby being baby.

Please, if you are still waiting for the blissful title of mother, don’t let me scare you out of it. Despite having to scrub walls that you thought were clearly out of fire’s range, it was rewarded with the cutest gummiest smile and half giggle meaning your kids will laugh when they explode as if they intentionally spewed everything just to watch your reaction err, which warms your motherly heart and makes you forgive everything they have ever done. Even if it’s so early in the morning your voice doesn’t work and your eyelids are still sleepied together.

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Folks, if I were a student in a class full of arteries and ventricles, my teacher would shake his head in disapproval and send me home with frowny face notes that say things like “Meg is a bad influence on the other students,” and, “Meg got into another fight today, the other student was hospitalized.” You see, every once in a while — usually when I’m in the dairy aisle adding 16 sticks of butter to my cart — I do a calculation of how much butter the husband and I eat on a monthly basis. The results are staggering, and we frequently take turns attempting butter interventions on each other depending on which one of us is of stronger will power on a particular day. One such intervention occurred recently when the husband had a taste of a delicious cherry macaroon tart and asked (in what I thought at the time was a very judgy kind of voice, but on reflection realized was mere curiosity) “How much butter is in this?” When I told him 10 tablespoons, he choked, and I hastily added “That’s not a lot of butter!” He looked at me incredulously, and it hit me. I’m a butteraholic.

Filled with butter addiction and shame, I decided I needed to make a change. A heart healthy change. With no butter. And so I decided to make double dipped fried chicken.

FAIL.

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So I may or may not have taken the above picture and I may or may not have taken the picture while being in the picture, because if I do confess to anything, and I am not confessing, I would just be showing my amazing talent of teleportation/my Flash like speed between clicking the “take picture button” to grabbing pot holders, holding up a hot pizza and positioning myself correctly on the other side of the lens before the shutter snaps the shot — I mean, if I confessed such awesome skills I would feel like I could then get away with the fact that I may have been wearing some super comfortable cropped pajama pants in the middle of the day, but, I can’t confess, because what super human would wear lame polka dot pants when I could be wearing hot pink spandex with a super cool black mask all while looking sexy instead of frumpy, I mean I would just be asking for someone to poke fun at me rather than awe at my mad skills.

But just because I can’t make such a confession doesn’t mean I can’t confess a little something else about this girl on the other side of the screen. But I warn you, it is nothing as cool as polka dot pants, it concerns pizza. Every three months I seem to come down with a mad case of pizza lust. There is something about boozy crust with piles of cheese and toppings baked in a hot oven until crispy and the edges get slightly charred that I become madly obsessed with — more so than cropped pajama pants. It started with an unassuming visit to a pizza joint, to which I wore normal human clothes, that inspired a pizza so wonderful it jump started what seems like a routine of pizza mongering that must be filled every few months and so that is where we are today, filling my mad desire for pizza that is not excessively greasy or requires tips to a delivery guy when you could make it from scratch before it gets to your front door.

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