I love comfort in a bowl!

When my husband and I first started dating, he told me his favorite meal was his mom's Chicken and Dumplings. So- being the smart girl I am, I e-mailed her and asked for the recipe! 8 1/2 years later- I still use that recipe...and keep that e-mail just in case, even though I now have the recipe memorized. I've made my own tweaks, but the base is still the same. It's comfort food- plain and simple.

Ingredients:

2 Cups of Shredded Chicken 

8-10 cups of chicken broth or stock ( I make my own while boiling the chicken)

2 cups of Flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp of baking powder

6 TBS of Butter

1 egg

1/4 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste

In a large mixing bowl- put 2 cups of Flour and 6 TBS of butter. Use a fork or a pastry cutter to mix until the mixture is crumbly. I also put my stock on the stove to start heating at this point. It needs to be over Medium High heat before adding the dumplings.

Add the baking powder and salt. Stir to combine. Beat together egg and milk and stir in. Dump the mixture onto a floured surface and knead to bring together.

When you dump this from the bowl, it looks dry, but as you start to knead it will come together into a smooth dough.

Using a rolling pin, roll dough to desired thickness. The dumplings puff as you cook them, so I roll mine really thin. My mother-in-law leaves hers very thick.

I like to use a pizza cutter to make my dumplings. I make mine into pretty skinny "noodles". My mother-in-law makes hers very wide. I cut these into about 2 inch pieces.

Drop dumplings into hot broth and stir so they don't stick. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

I make lots of chicken at once and freeze it. I just throw a baggie in frozen and it thaws very quick in the hot soup.

At this point, I like to thicken up the broth a bit...so I mix 1 TBS of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and stir in. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Ta-da! A warm bowl of comfort. Easy and delicious...perfect on a cool Fall night.