Momma's Chicken and Dumplins

Ok y'all! It's finally the first day of fall so I thought today would be the perfect day to share my most favorite cherished recipe EVER! My momma makes the best chicken and dumplins! She's made them from scratch my whole life and whenever I'm sick or sad or heck, just alive and kickin, that's the meal I request the most! We stayed in Tuscaloosa a few years ago for the hubby's job and I got really missing my momma and her cooking so I wanted to see if I could make it myself with her instructions over the phone...she's never been one to use actual recipes so I thought there was no way I would be able to do it just using eyeball measurements...Well, I did and it was amazing! It was like she was there in Alabama with me cooking it for me! So now that we're back in Texas and even though she's down the road, when I want me some comfort food, I can make it all by myself! So with my momma's ok, I'm gonna share the "recipe" with you! A lot of it is eyeballing and not exact but its pretty simple so here you go! I tried to make a recipe out of it the best I could! :)

- 1 whole frying chicken
-1 48 oz container of chicken broth
-1 26 oz can of cream of chicken
-2 cups of flour
-2 to 3 eggs
-2 cups of water
-1 to 2 stems of celery (finely chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste

Start out by filling a large Stock Pot 2/3 full with water (just make sure the chicken is covered with the water and the water has enough room to boil and not spill over)
Add chicken to pot and bring to a boil Boil 2-3 hours or until completely cooked...water will have evaporated quite alot...thats ok...just keep it in there
When chicken is done...remove the pot from heat.... Keep chicken in pot with water after cooking until chicken is completely cooled...Preferably the night before you want to make the meal
If doing the night before, when chicken is COMPLETELY cooled....put lid on pot and place in refrigerator until ready to make meal the next day.
When chicken is completely cooled, remove it from the pot of water
DE-Bone the chicken and set aside the chicken until ready to add to pot

Cut celery very thin (thin and diced)
Take pot with left over water and add whole container of chicken broth and the whole can of cream of chicken and the diced celery and bring it to a boil (if you like onions cut as much or as little as you wish just like the celery and add them as well)
 Take a large bowl out and add 2 cups of flour to bowl add s and p to taste add 1 to 2 eggs
 add water to form dough - if too watery add more flour when you reach a dough ball consistency you'll know
Tear off some dough from the dough ball and roll it out and cut into one inch strips

Make sure the pot of broth is BOILING and drop the dumplins in the boiling water...repeat until you have the amount of dumplins you desire
 add however many you wish and LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! DONT STIR THE POT UNTIL THE DUMPLINS HAVE COOKED!!
After about 10 minutes of boiling the dumplins, add chicken to pot ...add about 2-3 cups of milk and 1-2 cups of water to broth to make it thick...GO slow on this and eyeball it and taste it until it tastes the way you want it to....add water or milk to your taste...
Fold the soup over once with spoon Let Boil a while until everything is mixed and soup is HOT! Turn heat to a simmer and ENJOY!

Hope this works for you....It's not exact but just eyeball it until it tastes however you like it Tweak it to your liking!

 

This is one meal, you'll make again and again! Its definitely not a LAZY meal but its so worth it and I will always give it 10 lazy thumbs up!!!!!!!!!!!!!