The world's best cookbook...and it shows!

It's quiet here today. Steve is at school, hopefully finishing up his research paper. I can't tell you how sick we are of that damned paper. How it is just hanging over our heads. It will be nice when it is DONE. The kids are being relatively good today, despite the fact that they are all still sick. Tinna woke up around 2:30 barfing in her bed. Hopefully that is the end of that. I've done one load of laundry today, vacuumed the house, opened ALL of the windows. It's beautiful here...high of 80F...but the wind has picked up now so it's almost too windy to be out without a long sleeve shirt.

Anyway...I got started on worrying about dinner. I don't have much here since everyone has been ill. I don't dare take all 3 of these kids to the store with me this week. Can't stand the thought of it. So, I have to make due. I started looking around...chicken...cream of mushroom soup...no instant rice...no real veggies to speak of. I looked through a few "church" cookbooks...you know the ones I mean...churches put them together and sell them as fundraisers. I have quite a collection of these. Sometimes I actually discover a recipe that I can use. No luck today. One cookbook mentioned "chicken stew with dumplings" but that needed a whole chicken and I don't have that. Darn! But I do have 4 chicken breasts...and flour. SO, off to...the WORLD'S BEST COOKBOOK (The New Doubleday Cookbook, 1985 edition) for a dumpling recipe that I could make separately from the chicken dish. I wasn't confident I'd find a recipe I could use...but I did! So, tonight, we are having Campbell's Soup "Tasty 2 Step Chicken Bake" with dumplings that will be cooked in Campbell's Chicken & Stars soup instead of in chicken stew! I hope it works out. If it does, I'll post it later. Mmmm Mmmm Good!

Here's a photo of the WORLD'S BEST COOKBOOK.



It came with Steve when we moved in together and joined forces. I can't tell you how many times we refer to it...when we need a conversion...when we need a substitution...cooking temperatures or times...when we need ideas. It has 892 pages of recipes and information. One of Steve's past dogs loved it, too and in part, that's why it looks this way. From this day forward, THIS will be the gift I give to a new bride. I love it so much, I don't think I could live without it.