Due to the impending arrival of baby #2, I've been trying to find some quick and easy dinner recipes. Although, to be entirely honest, I don't much like cooking, so I'm always trying to find quick and easy recipes that still allow me to prep a meal from scratch. (From-scratch meals are healthier, in my opinion.)
We have enjoyed this meal a couple times, but I recently was struck again at just how easy it is to prepare, so I thought I'd share it with you...
Chicken and Dumplings
Ingredients:
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken (breasts, tenders, whatever is on sale or in your freezer)
1 can cream of chicken soup*
1 small onion, diced
1-2 each veggies, diced (carrots, celery, whatever you have on hand)
1-2 tsp each spices (cumin, parsley, poultry seasoning, pepper, whatever you have on hand)**
2 tbsp flour (optional - to thicken)
Instructions:
Throw everything in the slow cooker, cover with water*** and cook on high 5-6 hours.
It's just that easy.
*If you truly want to be fully "from scratch," you could make your own condensed soup. I use Pacific Foods organic condensed soups because they use recyclable aseptic containers (no BPA).
**I omitted salt because most condensed soups are loaded with it, but you may want to taste test when it's done.
***Or chicken broth, but - again - be conscious of the salt content.
And now for the best part: the biscuits. (Were you wondering what happened to the dumplings?)
You could certainly use refrigerated biscuit dough and add pieces of it to the slow cooker in the last half hour, but I prefer to avoid the trans fats that are often found in pre-made baked goods. I used to LOVE those Pillsbury frozen biscuits (booooooooo trans fats!). Once, I tried making my own biscuit dough and freezing the little circles, but they got icy pretty fast and just didn't taste right. Then, I came across this recipe on the Organic Valley website, and find it works much better...
Make-Ahead Buttermilk Mix
Ingredients:
1 cup Organic Valley Buttermilk Blend (dry buttermilk)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour*
5 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 cup baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
*I only had white pastry flour, so used it and then substituted 2 cups whole wheat flour for 2 of the white flour. It seems to work fine.
Instructions:
Mix all ingredients together until well combined and store in an airtight container.
Any time you want biscuits, just put 1 1/2 cups of this mix and 3 tbsp frozen butter in your food processor and pulse together. Slowly add 1/2 cup milk and pulse until the dough just comes together. Drop small balls of the dough onto a baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for about 13-15 minutes.
It's just that easy.
For the purposes of this recipe, you could add your dough balls to the slow cooker for "real" dumplings, but I like to bake the biscuits separately so I have the option of either pouring the chicken stew over a biscuit OR smothering a fresh, warm biscuit with honey and butter and eating it alongside the chicken stew. I may even do both.
(I apologize for the lack of photos with this recipe, but we usually snarf down the contents before I remember my camera.)
