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Saturday, February 4, 2023

Making Chicken and Dumplings from Scratch

   Welcome to A Working Pantry and today's post!

if this is your first visit, we hope you find something that will make you want to come back.  If you are a regular reader, please know that you are appreciated so very much!  I love the little community of frugal living, like-minded, pantry building people we are building here and am happy that you've chosen to be a part of it!

Since I'm still home-bound due to covid, there is no bargain shopping post this week.  Instead, I pulled together this post on how I make chicken and dumplings from scratch.  I hope you enjoy it!


I start out making a ball of dough using plain flour, shortening and milk.  How much depends on how many 'dumplings' you want to make.


Next, I divide the one dough ball into 2 fairly equal in size dough balls and set one aside.



I then roll out each dough ball one at a time quite thin, around 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch at the most.


Using a table knife, I cut the dough into 1 - 2-inch pieces.


Before I start on the dough, I get the broth, seasonings and already cooked chicken in a pot.  When it's just before boiling, I start dropping the dough pieces in one at a time, slightly stretching each piece before dropping.


Can you tell the ones just dropped from the ones that were dropped before them?  I gently stir the pot after dropping approximately every 7 - 8 pieces of dough.  I do not let the pot come to a rolling boil, keeping a slow and gentle pre-boil allows the dumplings to cook without cooking all to pieces.  When all the 'dumplings' are dropped, I let them simmer with the same gentle pre-boil for about 10 minutes to finish cooking the 'dumplings.'


The finished product!

So very DELICIOUS!

From the archives:


I hope you've found something helpful or inspiring in today's post!

Until tomorrow ...

Patsi 

Sharing 42 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

A Working Pantry

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine 

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

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5 comments:

  1. Yummy! I glad you feel well enough to cook!

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  2. That looks delicious! Hoping you're feeling at least a little better. That deliciousness should help.

    As a follow-up to the last pantry challenge, where I only added 2 and not 9, due to travel, I thought I'd update you on how I completed the 7 remaining items this week. I've not been able to locate garden vegetable cream cheese (again!), so I grabbed two tubs of plain and added dried celery, peppers, and onions to one tub to make my own. The cream cheese was on a loss leader at 2/$3--the cheapest I've seen in a long time. With orange juice being so high, I grabbed a 3# bag of Cuties at Aldi for $2.69 -- the other stores I regularly shop had them for $3 and up (on sale!). I had chuck roast on my grocery list and two stores near me had it on sale for $4.99#, one with a coupon to bring it down to $3.99. Found one on clearance for the equivalent of $2.37 # and snagged it right away. It had a "best by" date of 2/07 and half will go into the crock pot shortly for tonite's dinner and the other half into the freezer. That store also had chicken leg quarters on sale for $0.39 # and I grabbed a package to roast for chicken for soup/stews and I used the leftover bones for making stock in my crock pot (4 1/2 pints canned and added to the pantry). I went for the loss leaders and got more than I bargained for. On my way home, I stopped at another store for a handful of items they had on sale -- red peppers at 0.69 each, blueberries at 2/$3 -- for full pints, not the usual half pints they put on sale, and apples for 0.59, which I'll use in a breakfast dish and for baked apples with a pork tenderloin I picked up at Aldi. This last store also had 1/2 papayas on mark-down for $2.49 and mangos for 0.59 each. I've wanted to try dehydrating them for awhile and at this price I feel I can afford to experiment. I should be able to fill a quart jar, given the size of the papaya!

    For this week's challenge, I really needed to add eggs to my pantry. I added a dozen from one of the stores for $3.59/dozen (my Aldi has raised their price to over $4.00/dozen, so I took a pass; they are usually the cheapest, but not this time) and also picked up a bag of flax seed to try as an egg substitute in baked dishes (supposedly 1 Tbsp flax seed + 3 Tbsp water will = 1 egg; have not tried it yet, but will). If it doesn't work, I'll use the flax in a morning smoothie.

    Weather is starting to improve here and we should be above 40 for much of next week. I'm starting to think about planting my deck garden.

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    Replies
    1. Lori, I am feeling much better, thank you. You did some prudent and strategic shopping. I love reading about how you met the challenge and what you do with it all.

      I've read that about flax seed and water as an egg substitute in baking also but have never tried it.

      I think a lot of us are ready for warmer weather and planting!

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  3. I have used flax seed plus water as an egg replacement, and it has been fine!

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