Vernon WadeThere are lots of cooks out there who actually know what they are doing. I pretty much taught myself to cook, out of necessity. I haven’t a clue most of the time, but I do love to eat. 

I have made everything posted here. If I can do it, you certainly can. Someday, if there is enough interest, I will gather all these recipes into a cookbook. In the meantime, in the spirit of dashes, dollops and three-fingered pinches, I present them here for you to try. Let me know what you think.

Chicken & Dumplings

Chicken and dumplings may be the ultimate comfort food.  We had this for Sunday dinner on our Halloween camping trip. To ease the work at camp, I did some prep at home, mixing the dry ingredients for the dumplings in a zip lock bag, and cooking the vegitables with the broth and freezing it ahead of time.

 

 

Ingredients – Chicken

  • 2-3# boneless chicken tits
  • 1 diced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 sliced carrot
  • 1-2 sliced parsnip
  • 1 stalk chopped celery
  • 2 cups chopped mushrooms -ay kind will do; I used chanterelles and pigs ears
  • 6 tablespoons flour
  • 1 pinch thyme
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 3 pinches black pepper
  • some chopped parsley if you have it
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 4-6 cups chicken broth
  •  1/2 cup whole milk

Ingredients – Dumplings

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 pinch pepper
  • 2 pinches ground sage
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermik (whole milk, powdered milk, or cream will also work).

Chicken

Wash and chop vegetables, onion, garlic, and mushrooms.  Place in pot over fire with broth and simmer until vegetables begin to get tender. remove from heat and stir in flour and butter until butter melts. Add chicken and return to heat. Cook until chicken is done and no pink remains. Reduce heat and add milk and seasonings – you may need to temper the milk to prevent curdling. Remove an equal amount of the broth, allow it to cool some at the same time warming the milk a little. Combine broth and milk slowly then gently stir it in with the chicken and soup.  increase the het and spoon dollops of dough to cover the surface. Place lid on Dutch oven; add coals to the lid and cook until dumplings form a golden crust.

 

Dumplings

Combine dry ingredients with butter milk and mix into a mass of dough. Spoon dollops over surface of chicken and broth. Put lid on Dutch oven and apply coals, cook until golden brown, or at least not doughy (it is damned hard to wait- it smells so good).