Chicken Dumpling Soup

The perfect comfort food. 

I haven't made chicken and dumplings in a long time. And I am sorry I haven't. WOW what a big hit! I made it for my family and they gobbled it down! Wanting more and more. Then I made it for a party later that week and it seemed to be a hit...well, at least my crockpot was empty at the end of the party. So that is a good sign. 

My mom used to make chicken and dumplings all the time growing up. It was one of my favorite dishes. I wanted to make it into a soup...and so I did. My secret ingredient~Pesto. Turns out perfect!

So curl up and serve some chicken and dumpling soup. You won't regret it!

Ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded. Or you can cook your own chicken and shred it.
4-5 large carrots, chopped
3 bay leaves
1-2 Tb Fresh pesto
3 quarts chicken stock (or more as needed)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp parsley, or half bunch fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp + cracked pepper
Salt to taste
4-5 celery stalks, chopped
1 Tb lemon juice
1/4 cup flour

Dumplings:

2 cups flour
1 Tb baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup plus 2 Tb milk
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder

To make the soup: Start my sauteing the onions and garlic in large pot (I like to cook everything in the same pot=less dishes). Add salt and pepper. Cook about 2 minutes over medium high heat and then add celery and carrots. Once the veggies are browned and slightly tender, stir in flour until completely mixed. This will make the stock a wonderful gravy.

This has the chicken already added, so you can see all the ingredients.

 Add the chicken stock to the hot pot. He he. Hot pot. I like that, I should say that more often. Anyway, add the rest of ingredients for your soup and let cook until carrots are almost tender. Bring to boil and reduce heat to medium/medium-low and simmer.  The longer the soup cooks, the better the flavors blend. *If there is any foam or such on the top of the soup, scrap off and discard. 

To make dumplings: Mix all ingredients together. Then spoonful droplets of batter into the soup. The dumplings will look very wet and swell at first, then they will toughen and form better dumplings. After spooning dumplings into soup, give it a stir and stir occasionally until all dumplings are fully cooked, carrots are tender and soup is thicken. *The flour and dumplings will help to thicken soup. If needed (or too thick, add more stock...keep an eye on this). 

I used wheat flour in mine, cuz I am crazy like that.

Serve warm and Enjoy! *Oh and don't eat the bay leaves, discard those :)