One Pot Creamy Chicken and Noodles

Last week we had a near miss snow day here in North Texas. 

By “near” I mean the temperature hovered right around freezing but never below, so it was bitter cold. By miss I mean it didn’t snow. Not one single flake.  Yes it was grey, damp and rainy, a cold dreary near miss of a day without any of the fun of snow.

And if I’m being honest, I was terribly disappointed. Like, irrationally so.

I know. I know. I realize it’s this very moment, with those very words, where I am losing most of my audience. My friends back East and up North are all “well f*** this. You can have this snow nightmare, Crazy Lady. We don’t want it.” They’re embittered and cold, staring down the face of a yet another impending snow-mageddon, rushing to the store to buy bread, toilet paper and wine (or milk if they’re on the practical side unlike, well, me). 

And then all of my Southern friends (I’m looking at you, specifically, Floridians) are all “Well I MOVED down here to get away from that stuff. You should too. Clearly you’re insane.” End.Of.Story.

All of those very valid thoughts aside, this East Coast Texan was very sad. Bear with me here, I’ll explain.

Snow days were a huge part of my life as a girl growing up in Maryland. In fact, snow day memories are some of my most vividly warm ones. YES, you read that right. WARM. On a snow day. I know, I know. Not digging myself out of the crazy train just yet. But stick around….

For me, snow days signify pause. They signify community. They signify connection.

I lived on this tiny little street in this tiny little town. My tiny little street was surrounded on all sides by farm fields. We were isolated in the best way. A single two lane road with a vast expansive of hills, fields and cows on either side led to our neighborhood. We were, quite honestly, out there. So when snow days came, we were pretty much stuck until one of the farmers came by and plowed us out.

Stuck sounds bad, right? But it wasn’t, at least not to my recollection.

Stuck meant the entire neighborhood, even our rather reclusive neighbor with his ubiquitous pipe (to this day pipe tobacco is one of my favorite smells), would come out and gather. Stuck meant we could sled down our street with it’s massive slowly sloping hill or, if we were really lucky, we were allowed to use the farmers field and really fly. It meant parents taking days off because they had to, chatting in the middle of the road with neighbors and friends, laughing and connecting and loosening up from the every day grind that makes parents so, well, disconnected. (in retrospect, as a parent myself I realize now that they were 100% complaining about being snowed in with insane children). It meant a rotating house party, one neighbor making 15 bean soup and offering it up to anyone who wanted it, another promising hot chocolate to all the neighborhood kids after a long day of snowball fights and fort making. It meant UNO parties late at night and mittens and snow boots sitting by the fire, leaving little puddles of thawed snow and tingly fingers and toes.

Stuck, I realize now, was a good feeling for me. It has this haze of joy and happiness surrounding it. It feels warm and fuzzy. These moments of being stuck, they are ones I long for when life feels chaotic and wrung-out. I love talking with someone, I mean really talking and really connecting because we were actually conversing and listening and not just nodding along, half distracted by a to-do list a mile long. I love the warm fuzzy feeling of community coming together, of sharing moments that feel stolen and precious because they are so rare, born only out of being stuck. I love surrounding myself with people, with laughter, with joy. I love the feeling of stuck. 

Living now in a place where snow is rare, fleeting and also, no offense here Texas, humorous (could we freak out any more over two snow flakes in the sky? I don’t think so), I realize how much I miss this kind of stuck. I miss it because it just doesn’t happen often enough. That level of community and togetherness, it’s only built out of necessity. We don’t like to pause life. We don’t like to be pushed outside of our routines, our schedules. That weird neighbor who smokes a pipe and has police dogs, we don’t like to take the extra step to chat with him. But when we’re forced to because the farmer takes his good old sweet time coming our way with the plow, it is the good stuff of life.

And man, this Texas transplant misses it. 

Looking back, I realize that all of my rose colored glasses memories, the ones that feel more like twinkle lights and magic, they’re the ones I cling to because of the people and the sharing and the connection. These are my jam, my favorite spaces. If I’m being honest, when I’m in them, I never want them to end. I am always the last to say goodbye because I long for the connection to continue, the warm fuzzies to stay forever. I recognize these minutes for what they are–fleeting–and I want to capture them like lightning bugs in a jar. Only I know it’s impossible. So I settle for the warm fuzzy memories. The ones that feel like magic. 

In this crazy world, where the load of life sometimes seems too tough to carry and I wonder how things will work out with the mess we’re in, those warm fuzzy memories remind me of the good. If I squint my eyes really tight and think back really hard, I can feel the feels of the neighborhood gathering. I can smell the pipe tobacco and hear the squeals as kids fly down the street. Those feelings, they remind me to stop, if even for a second or two in my crazy crowded out days, and seek the magic. 

It’s always there for the seeking. Sometimes we just have to get stuck to find it.  

So, for my back home friends bracing for another storm, build some stuck memories for me. Watch your kids with wonder while they stare at the tv waiting for the school closure scroll to hit their county name in the alphabet. Make some soup, take it next door. Play UNO late into the night and thaw little fingers and toes with hot chocolate. These are fuzzy warm memories in the making. Yes, I know snow plows and driving and the ridiculousness that snow brings, but remember, it brings beauty too. Beauty you can’t capture unless you let yourself.

And for the rest of us, either the ones staring at the sky looking for snowflakes or the ones begging the temperature gauge to stay above freezing, we can have the warm fuzzies too. For me, of course, warm fuzzies come from the kitchen. There is nothing I love more than comfort food when it’s chilly outside. The creamy one pot chicken dish is my homage to chicken and dumplings. I love nothing more than a good dumpling, but let’s face it, I also have about zero hours in the day and dumplings, well, they can be tough. So this take with egg noodles, totally doable even for a busy school night and so delicious.

What I love about this dish is it’s flexibility. It’s so easy to customize this one. I made it when my parents were here for Christmas and made it more of a riff on my Chicken with Mushrooms and Rosemary (recipe here) and then, just last week, I made it with thyme and it was more of a Thanksgiving type of take. It’s based on what you like and how you like it. Even with simple salt and pepper it’s delicious. The key is simple and comfortable. It’s like a hug of a chicken dinner. Enjoy it with a glass of wine, your family around and a serious case of the warm fuzzies all around.

Peace, love and memories,

Meg

One Pot Creamy Chicken and Noodles

July 12, 2019

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By: Meaghan Dawson

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 8 ounces mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized chunks
• 1/2 tablespoon seasoning of your choice (rosemary, thyme, oregano)
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup flour
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1/3 cup whole milk (optional)
• 8 ounces egg noodles
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables

Directions

• Step 1 In a large skillet add a drizzle of olive oil and heat over medium high heat until shimmering.
• Step 2 Add chicken to pan in single layer and season with salt and pepper. Let cook without stirring for 3 minutes, or until browned.
• Step 3 Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until browned on all sides. Remove from pan.
• Step 4 Add butter to pan and melt.
• Step 5 Add in mushrooms, onions and seasoning. Stir to combine.
• Step 6 Coon 2-3 minutes or until softened. Add in flour and stir to combine and make a light coating on vegetables.
• Step 7 Slowly pour in stock while stirring to pick up any browned bits from pan.
• Step 8 Add in milk and noodles and bring to a boil.
• Step 9 Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often to keep the noodles from sticking, for 8-10 minutes or until done.
• Step 10 In the last 2-3 minutes of cooking add the vegetables (no need to defrost). Cook until warmed through.
• Step 11 Taste, season with salt and pepper if needed and SERVE.

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