Chicken and Dumplings

Every Sunday we had dumplings. They were made with plain flour if we had it and self-rising if we had not bought the plain for dumplings. Twenty-five pound bags was how we bought flower and it was self-rising. Using the self-rising we had to make the dough hours in advance to keep from having a puffy dumpling. The more it was kneaded the best flat dumpling you would get. We knew nothing of a spoon dropped dumpling.


I now use the frozen ones and they are just as good or better. My girls love dumplings more than anything. When they were little we ate lunch at my grandmother's every Sunday. The menu was always, dumplings, boiled cabbage and stewed potatoes. That is still one of my girls favorite meals.


Ingredients
1 whole chicken
1 (8 ounce) package frozen dumplings (not sure how many oz it is but it's the regular package)
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 (14 ounce) can chicken broth (may or may not need)
1/2 stick butter
Directions
1 Cook whole chicken in large pot full of water until done. Remove chicken from pot and debone. Save broth from chicken and add soup. Return broth and soup to a boil, then add frozen dumplings. We use Mary B's open Kettle dumplings. They are often found in the frozen food section near the other frozen breads. We use two packages of dumplings and often have to add more broth because of it. Just watch and add as desired for your preference of thickness. Boil as directed on package (I think it's 45 minutes) then add chicken back. Cook just long enough to warm chicken back up. Be careful because once chicken is added dumplings will easily stick. Add extra black pepper and the butter.
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Chicken and Dumplings are a food that one can make a meal out of with just some cornbread to go with them. My grandmother used to say she did not need the cornbread, because the dumplings were like bread. She still always made cornbread. We were made to eat bread with every meal. I have yet to totally understand why. "Are you not going to eat any bread with that?" It was as if it was a major crime to not eat bread with a meal. The thing I think now is if we feeled up on bread there would be enough for all of us to eat.