Recipe of the Week: Chicken and Dumplings

This week's Recipe of the Week is for yummy chicken and dumplings. This stuff is pure comfort food at its best! I grew up eating my Mom's simple, delicious chicken and dumplings. For the longest time, I had zero success replicating her recipe in my own kitchen...my dumplings always came out tough and flat instead of puffy and soft like Mom's. Determined to succeed, I kept at it until I found a recipe that works perfectly for me. This is my adaption of a recipe that I found in Cooking Light.

If you use pre-cooked rotisserie chicken meat, it's an even easier dish to whip up. This recipe makes plenty for us to have a hearty dinner with enough leftover for lunches the next day. The flavor is great and tastes like you spent all day in the kitchen instead of under and hour. I serve it in bowls like you would soup. Best of all, the dumplings come out fluffy and tender every time!

Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:

1 tbs. olive oil

1 lb. rotisserie chicken breast cut into 1-inch chunks (if you use fresh chicken breast, season and pan-sear it first)

1 chopped yellow onion (medium)

2 stalks celery, sliced thin

1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin rounds (you can also take 7 or 8 baby carrots and cut in thirds)

1/2 cup frozen corn

2 tbs. flour

4 cups chicken broth

1/2 tsp. dried thyme (1 tbs. fresh is good if you have it on hand)

3/4 cup Bisquick

5 tbs. skim milk

1/2 tsp. dried parsley

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(1) Place a Dutch oven over medium heat and add olive oil. When heated, add all veggies except the corn and sauté for 10 minutes.

(2) Add chicken meat. Sprinkle chicken/veggie mixture with the flour, and saute a minute or two longer to coat all the ingredients with the flour.

(3) Add chicken broth, corn, thyme, and black pepper to taste. Stir well with a whisk to combine. Cover, reduce heat to med-low, and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

(4) Meanwhile, combine 1/2 teaspoon parsley, Bisquick, and skim milk in a small bowl. Drop dumplings by tablespoonfuls onto the chicken/veggie mixture. Cover and cook at med-low for another 15 minutes. The key is to SIMMER the dumplings without letting the mixture boil!!

(5) To serve, put two ladles of the chicken/veggie mixture in a bowl and top with two dumplings.