Chicken and Dumplings

Growing up I was quite deprived in my food choices. My Mom is kind of picky so I didn't know I liked a lot of food until I left home. Luckily, my Aunt Julie always sent my Dad home with his own container of Chicken and Dumplings and he was nice enough to share with me. Sunday's are my favorite cooking days because I have time to cook meals that take a little too long to cook during the week. Chicken and dumplings is one of those meals!

I started off with a two chopped onions in some oil in my already hot cast iron dutch oven. I cut up a whole chicken and put the pieces on top of the onion once it was translucent. You don't really have to cut up the chicken, you can throw it in there whole; I cut it into pieces so I can get more of the fat off. I used seasoned salt and pepper to season the chicken and onions. I used 32oz of chicken stock plus another 32oz of water so the chicken would be completely covered, put the lid on, and left it to cook for an hour.

Once your house smells delicious it's about time to take the chicken out. I pulled the meat off with a fork and then used my fingers to shred it into smaller pieces. I recommend using your fingers to do this so you can make sure you haven't missed a bone somewhere!

Put the chicken back into the chicken stock and start adding pieces of biscuit dough. There are multiple ways to speed up the process here. You can buy pre-made biscuit dough and chop it up; use Bisquick to make biscuit dough or you can do it the hard way and make your own biscuit dough from scratch. Since I never do anything easy can you guess which way I went? Exactly, I made my own dough. I made enough for 30 biscuits (based on my Aunt's recipe) because I wanted it to be thick (and hers is always thick!). You'll need to stir while you add and the dough will float. Let it cook/simmer about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the dough stays in the mixture you're ready to go. Probably you'll want to add more salt and pepper. You could also add carrots, celery, and garlic to give it some more flavor!