The best chicken and dumplin's recipe. period.

Mama Sha's Old Fashioned Chicken & Dumplin's

If you are looking to put a little meat on your bones this recipe will do the trick! It has about a year's worth of carbs, but it is soooo good. It's simple and hearty and will warm you to your very soul. I don't put veggies in mine, but you could easily add some carrots or celery to add a little variety to it.

I don't know how many times I've been asked for this recipe, but since it's one of those things I learned to cook from my grandma it's been really hard to nail down specific measurements for the ingredients. This is definitely one of those old fashioned recipes where you after a few tries you'll be able to cook it without looking at the recipe at all. Here's an actual conversation that took place a few years ago when I was first trying to make it:

Me: "How much flour do I need?"

Memaw: "I don't know... enough to make it thick."

Me: "How much salt should I add?"

Memaw: "However much salt you like baby."

Me: "How long should I cook it?"

Memaw: "Till it's done."

After trying to learn my grandma's recipes I had so much more insight into why my own mom didn't learn to cook until after she started watching Food Network:You can't get recipes out of people who don't use them.

Ingredients
1 (10.75 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
16 ounces chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into strips
1 teaspoon celery seed
salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1) Boil the chicken (this step also gives you your chicken broth if you don't like the canned stuff).
2) Tear the chicken into bite size pieces.
3) In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, stir together the cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, and milk.
4) Add the chicken and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
5)To Make Dumplings: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of oil. Pour into the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.

6)Drop tablespoonfuls of the dumpling mixture into the chicken stew ONLY AFTER IT IS AT A STEADY BOIL. Cover pot tightly, and simmer for another 12 to 15 minutes. Ladle into bowls, and serve hot.

This particular version feeds 2 or three people depending on how hungry you are (although I should warn you that it's a pretty heavy dish so it doesn't take much of the stuff to feel full.) To feed 4 or more I'd recommend doubling the recipe.


---------Post Edit-------------------------------------------
Dr A is still desperately seeking a PGY1 residency. In anything. Anywhere. Seriously, a residency in toe fungus medicine in Northern Alaska would be like winning the lottery right now. He's going to take the USMLE Step 3 at the end of the Summer, but he still really needs either a research position, an observership, or a residency, but so far we haven't found been able to get him a position in any of those. His grades were all pretty good (even though he did have to take Step 2 twice) and he got honors in all his clinicals, so it's still really mystifying/frustrating that he hasn't been able to move forward yet.