Tasty Tuesday – Chicken and Dumplings

{Dear Mom,

Thank you for teaching me how to cook. Thank you for teaching me not just how to follow a recipe, but also how to modify it to make it what I wanted. So many of the recipes I see involve something out of a box or a can or a mix of some kind. I don’t need to use those, I make far better ones for cheaper and not that much more effort thanks to your guidance. I can tell just by reading a recipe what I’ll want to change to make it what we like to eat. I can look in my pantry and pull out a dozen meals. I can cook for two people or twenty. Thanks, mom. May my children learn as much from me as I did from you.}

Welcome to another week of Tasty Tuesday here at The Young'ns!
There’s a recipe index under the food tab above if you’re ever looking for a recipe I’ve already blogged.
Every Monday, I plan on trying a new recipe. If it goes well, that’s what I’ll be posting on Tasty Tuesday. If not, I’ll post a tried and true (i.e. something I don’t have to think about too hard) ;)

I was looking at a recipe for chicken and dumplings, but it wasn’t exactly what I remembered from childhood, so I sort of followed that one and sort of did what I remembered having. I did use her recipe for Fauxtisserie Chicken, and it was pretty good. I need better fresher spices next time, more salt, and more foil.

The trick to good dumplings is to make sure your broth is really boiling, then drop the dumplings in by the tablespoon until the top of your broth is covered. Let them cook until they’re just done, and they should be nice and fluffy and doughy and impart some creamy goodness to your soup.

 

Chicken and Dumplings

{Ingredients}

• 5 cups Chicken broth or stock. If you use canned, get the low sodium kind. Try making it once, and you’ll never want to go back. I use the canned when I don’t have time to/forget to make the “real thing”, so don’t feel like you have to make the broth, it just tastes way better.
• 3 cups water
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped
• Celery if you like. Hubby doesn’t, so I don’t usually put it in.
• 3-4 cups cubed chicken. I liked the Fauxtisserie that I mentioned above, but you could really use any kind.
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk

{Directions}

• Put chicken broth, water, carrots, celery, and cubed chicken in stock pot. Bring to a boil.
• In the meantime, mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a food processer or bowl.
• Add shortening in 2-4 blobs. If using a food processor, pulse a few times until crumbly. If not, use a pastry cutter or two knives to incorporate shortening.
• Slowly add milk, mixing a little bit until all milk is poured in. Pulse a few more times to get the dough into a nice ball. It should be sticky, that’s fine.
• When soup reaches a boil, put the dough on top of the broth a tablespoon at a time, careful not to put one dumpling on top of another.
• Fill up the top of the broth with dumplings. If you have extra dough, you can put it by the tablespoon on an ungreased cookie sheet and cook them at 375 degrees for 10 minutes for some tasty biscuits.
• Once the last dumpling is in, boil for 10-12 minutes.
• Eat with a nice side of veggies or a tasty sandwich. Mmm, yummy!

~S

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