Chicken and Dumplings

It was sprinkling a bit this morning when I got up.  Teddy usually runs to the back door to go outside.  Above you can see  her typical reaction to sprinkles.  She's not going to get her paws wet.  The past few years Teddy's allergies have been horrible.  So, this past Spring I changed her diet.  She eats nothing that has grains of any type in it and I only make her organic free range chicken.  She still had a few allergy problems but not nearly what she had in the past.  The flip side of this is that I have lots of chicken carcasses to deal with.  I make pot after pot of stock and freeze it but my freezer is bursting at the seams.  Since we finally have some cooler weather, I made the kids at the after school program a big pot of chicken and dumplings.

 First I sauteed 1 large diced onion in a stick of butter along with 8 stalks of celery.  I made this with 4 quarts of stock and ended up with 8 quarts of soup.  You can cut it down to the amount you want.  Since I only feed Teddy the white meat, I freeze the dark meat and I had lots of that to use in this recipe. I added it to the stock. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and threw in some bouillon cubes for added flavor. Cook this over medium heat while you prepare the dumplings.

 In a separate bowl add 1 tsp. of salt and 1 tsp. of pepper.  Add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.

Whisk in 3/4 cup of water.

Whisk in 2 eggs.

Stir in 3 cups of flour with a fork just until it is combined.

Add some diced parsley or celery leaves.  I used celery.

Dump 1 cup of flour on your counter and plop the ball of dough down on it and flip it to coat. Roll this out to 1/4 of an inch.

Turn the heat up under your stock and bring it to a boil.

Cut your dough into 2 inch strips which are about 1 inch wide.  Drop them into the boiling stock stirring around to keep them from sticking.

They float to the top when they are cooked.

I made french bread to eat along with it.

I have made a lot of food for the kids and they always love everything I send but this is the clear winner. They gobbled it down and what they didn't finish, they took home balanced in bowls since there were no take out containers.  They liked it that much.  Now I have a good use for all of the stock. FYI....the kids said this soup is FIRE.  That's what kids say these days when something is really BOSS.  How's that for a trip down memory lane?