Home Cooking – Chicken & Dumplings

This time when we’ve been asked to stay at home has been so good for my family (not good for my business). Since all of the kids’ activities have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, I have had time to make better meals for my family. We have not had to rush in making food or eating it and we have been enjoying it. Also, with grocery stores being overrun I have had to get creative (I like a challenge). I thought I would share some of the meals I have been making. I know I appreciate dinner ideas since I can get stuck in a rut with the same meals over and over.

I had turkey stock frozen from the left over turkey at Thanksgiving so I decided to use it to make chicken noodle soup. I love making soup because it is warm, yummy, and you can throw basically anything you have into it. For this soup I first cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast in a skillet. Then I melted butter and added onions and garlic in a dutch oven. I added the turkey stock I had thawed (obviously you can use chicken stock but that’s not what I had). Then I added frozen green beans and carrots to the pot. Lastly, I shredded the chicken and added it to the soup. Season your soup the way you like it and simmer until it the veggies are tender. I wait to make my noodles for when we are going to eat the soup so they don’t get soggy. You can make the noodles separately and pour the soup on top or cook the noodles in the soup (if you plan to eat the soup in one sitting). Homemade noodles are awesome for this soup (or always) but if you have store bought noodles that works too!

Now, I am not a cooking blog and I rarely follow recipes when I cook (they are general guidelines, right?). So I know above is not a recipe. If you would like a recipe for chicken noodle soup, you can find one here at Spend With Pennies (she even walks you through making your own broth).

At this point you are probably confused by the title of this post. Where is the chicken and dumplings? This is my favorite part of making chicken noodle soup. After we have eaten the soup for one night’s meal, I use the left over soup to make chicken and dumplings for another meal the same week.

You can follow this link to for a recipe from the Novice Chef. The beautiful photos are her’s and it is the recipe I used for the dumplings. You should definitely go check out her cooking blog!
Basically, thicken your soup by melting butter in a saucepan and then adding flour to it to make a rue. Add the rue to your simmering soup and it will thicken it to be like a stew. Then add the dumpling dough, put the lid on the pot and simmer for 15 minutes. This is definitely a favorite of my family. I love it because I get two delicious meals out of the same pot!