That HomeSteading Mama

It’s Not a Dumpling: The Soul of Chicken and Pastry If you walk into a kitchen in southeastern North Carolina and call the steaming pot on the stove "chicken and dumplings," you might get a polite but firm correction. To the outside world, the distinction might seem small, but to those of us raised on these red-clay lands, the difference is everything. Dumplings are often thick, leavened "drops" of dough balls that sit on top of a stew like fluffy clouds. They are lovely, but

The perfect crispy cornbread that's crispy around the edges and soft in the middle. **Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.** Based on my recent social media posts, it’s become clear that the vast majority of people outside of southeastern North Carolina—specifically outside of Robeson County—are completely unfamiliar with this method of cooking cornbread. T

I saw a social media post the other day, that went something along the lines of, "people who can make gravy, think their better than everyone else". The author of the post was saying that because gravy is hard to make, the people who can make it successfully have somehow leveled up their cooking game. To those who are inexperienced in the kitchen, making gravy or any roux from scratch, for that matter seems challenging. In actuality, it isn't. The base of any gravy is the