Chicks and Dumplins'

Chicken and Dumplings has got to be one of the yahoo's favorites (well, the girl yahoos, anyway!) It's a perfect crock pot meal for our family on the go!

Here's what it takes:

Start by spraying the crock pot with some non-stick spray, and plop in a few chicken breasts - since I always have a mega-sized bag of these in the freezer, this a fantastic meal to make with them - and they can go in frozen!

Toss in some chopped onions....

and a couple of cans of soup in any combination of Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Chicken and Cream of Celery...


You can also add some seasonings here - poultry seasoning mixes, salt, pepper, oregano, sage, thyme, garlic...whatever floats your boat!

Let this cook for a few hours (around 4 or so) on high...and it will start to look something like this...


Now it's time to shred the chicken...this will work wonderfully with just a few forks - plant them into the chicken and pull....and when you're done (and really, this should not take more than a few minutes...your chicken is going to be so tender and juicy!) add a bag of frozen veggies and mix them in.

Now comes some personal preferences...I've made this several ways....adding nothing...adding water...or adding chicken stock/broth. Add about one soup can's worth or so...the veggies will add some liquid to the mix, so the more liquid you add, the soupier your meal will be.


And the easiest dumplings every made - refridgerated biscuits! Just pop open a can and cut each one up into small chunks and just drop them right on top of your mixture. One can of "Grands" sized biscuits or two cans of the smaller ones will do the trick.

Let these cook, covered for a bit (at least an hour or so). Notice how nicely they've gone all "Ball Park Frank" on you and 'plumped while you cooked 'em'!

If you want dumplings that are more 'noodle-like', you can go back and stir them into the mixture after they've plumped a little bit. If you like them more like biscuits, simply let them continue to cook on top, and they'll eventually end up with a nice, brown baked look to them.


After a grand total cooking time of about 6 hours - 4 before adding veggies and dumplings, and 2 after...you're delicious Chicken and Dumplings are ready to eat!