Chicken 'n Dumplings Experiment

Chicken 'n Dumplings sounded like a good thing for dinner. I searched for some recipes, but kept running into cream of chicken soup, or Bisquick. I don't buy Bisquick and I try not to use canned condensed soups. I've made alternatives for both in the past, but didn't have them made up now and didn't want to make them. So I figured I could wing it - Robin does it all the time, surely I can too.

So I took two boneless chicken breasts out of the freezer along with chicken stock Robin made over the weekend and put them in the skillet on low. As that thawed and cooked, I chopped up a medium onion, a couple carrots, a couple celery stalks, and a couple cloves of garlic. These all went in the dutch oven in which I had melted a stick of butter. Ta-Da - Mirepoix! I then turned the mirepoix into a roux by adding about 1/2 cup of flour. I poured in the broth from cooking the chicken along with another bag from the freezer. This broth was looking a little weak (sorry Robin) so I added some chicken bullion, and then some water. Yes, I'm slightly aware of the contradictions there. I shredded the chicken and added it to the pot. Then it was time to throw open the herbs and spices cabinet. *think evil genius cook rubbing hands together* But I was tame, I only added pepper, parsley, and thyme (refraining the salt until the bullion had done it's thing). Simmer and bubble waiting on the husband.

It wasn't getting as thick as I wanted it so I added more flour, in a paste of course. Simmer and bubble waiting on the husband. Still not the consistency I was looking for so I checked to see if I just happened to still have a cream soup hanging out in the pantry. I did, so in that went and finally got what I was wanting. Simmer and bubble waiting on the husband.

For the dumplings I found this recipe on allrecipes.com that did look good:
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon white sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon margarine
* 1/2 cup milk

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in medium size bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk to make a soft dough.
Drop by spoonfuls into boiling stew. Cover and simmer 15 minutes without lifting lid.
To make parsley dumplings, add 1 tablespoon parsley flakes to the dry ingredients.

I did add the parsley. They were yummy. The soup part was yummy. I made good chicken 'n dumplings.

I didn't get a picture, nor ask for rating because for some reason I wasn't thinking this was a soup. Robin said it was a little too chicken-y. Isaac gave it 5 stars.