Chicken & Dumplins

Have you ever gone to the Cracker Barrel and thought:  Hey, I wish I could cook like this.  Well, you can, and I'm here to share one of my favorite recipes. This is NOT the exact Cracker Barrel Chicken and Dumplins recipe, but it tastes very close.  

I rarely cook with exact measurements, so most of these are guesses to what I normally use.  

Here's what you need to get you started:

Soup Base:

6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, thawed, cut into cubes

2 stalks of celery, deveined and chopped

1 small red onion OR 3 scallions, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced

1 can cream of chicken soup

splash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

2 chicken bouillon cubes

salt and pepper to taste

Biscuit Dough (my recipe, but you can use a bisquick, or any biscuit recipe that you like):

3 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

9 Tbs Crisco (I used butter flavored)

milk (I don't have a measurement for this, but it's about a cup.)

In a large pot, or stock pot, heat EVOO on medium heat, and brown onions, garlic & celery.  Salt and pepper chicken and brown with vegetables.  Add bouillon cubes, cream of chicken soup, and 6-8 cups of water.  Bring to boil.

While soup base is cooking, mix biscuit dough.  In large bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking powder.  Cut in, with a pastry blender, the Crisco.  Pour in just enough milk to make a soft dough.  At this point, you can roll the dough, and cut to make little squares, but I enjoy pulling the dough apart and dropping it into the broth.

Once soup base is boiling, drop in biscuit dough, one piece at a time.  Bring Chicken and dumplins to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and simmer for about 10-13 minutes (allowing the dumplins to cook through.)

And that's it.  It makes about 8-10 servings.  I'm guessing the serving amount because it feeds my family of 6, some of us have seconds, and then I will normally eat it for lunch the next day.  If you have a small family, then I suggest freezing 1/2 and save for another meal.

Total cost: Not that much.  I normally have all ingredients on hand, so it's a quick, last minute throw together meal.

Enjoy!  Come back for more, yummy recipes.