Mrs. Milly's Homemade Chicken N' Dumplings

It was always a battle in my house over chicken and dumplings. My mom made it a little thinner with Bisquick drop dumplings and chunky carrots, celery, onion and chicken breast.
My Papa made it with noodle type dumplings, thicker, more of a shredded dark meat chicken and small diced celery and onion so that's how my dad liked it.

Now I like it both ways, one is also lower fat but we are talking southern winter food here so lets not try to kid anyone. When I think of good ol' southern chicken n' dumplings it is how my Papa made it, sorry mom...  Now my Papa did cheat and use frozen dumplings and I know that's not how his mama taught him but we let it slide ;-) I wish I had my Grandmas recipe for dumplings because I hear she was a great cook, but I don't. So I was determined to make awesome homemade dumplings and I did it! It was 2 thumbs up and full tummies all around!
  

As you see I added some yellow carrots going with my moms theme but was not a fan, its all preference though.

Chicken and Broth:
5 Chicken Quaters
1 tsp Dried Thyme
1 tbsp Onion Powder
1 tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tbsp Black Pepper Corns
2 Bay Leafs
1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
2 Tbsp Salt

- Add all in a big pot, just barely cover with water and boil until chicken is cooked through. 
***Save Broth*** This is your base and you'll use some in the dumplings also.

- As chicken is cooling to pick, dice 2 Stalks of Celery and 1/2 an Onion 
- Strain out water you cooked the chicken in and keep the clean broth
- Put a little more then half the broth back in pot with celery and onion, salt and pepper to taste and bring back to a boil. I didn't measure, you can always add more in if it gets too thick
- Pick chicken and add to pot
- Last cook dumplings right in the pot 

Dumplings:
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Shorting
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Chicken Broth
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt

- In your mixer add dry ingredients and shorting, mix
- Put on dough hook and add in wet ingredients and mix until it starts to pull from sides and form a dough ball
- Flour surface very well 
- Flour top of dumplings very well, cant have too much flour here. It will keep it from sticking and help thicken your broth.
- Roll out to 1/4-1/2 inch thick depending on how you like them, cut in strips with pizza cutter
- Bring broth back up to boil and drop in till they all float to the top. 


Enjoy!

~Mrs. Milly~




Mrs. Milly's 2cents: Making things homemade is so much better tasting and better for you than store bought items full of preservatives and unneeded ingredients. Anytime you can use organic products it makes it that much cleaner and healthy for you. Enjoy the satisfaction in doing it your self!
            This was also easy on my stomach but each person with IBD is different. Please use caution     and consult your doctor before trying anything new.