OK to begin with, if you are a real cook then you will have no time or patience for me, for my ways in the kitchen are without rhyme or reason and beyond understanding. I am like Sasquatch when I’m in the kitchen, is she a real cook, or not? Will this be good, or should we run, now? It’s a mystery.

But about my chicken & dumplings. I know how to do it. Don’t ask me how I know or anything. Just try it. The finished product will not only make you want to slap your grandmaw but also pinch all your neighbors and then dip your dog in a tub of chocolate sauce.

Here’s how to make it. Start with a chicken, the kind you bake. Bake it. I bake mine at 350 for an hour & a half in a glass baking dish. Don’t pour out ANY of the juices that come out of it while it’s baking, that gets poured into the mix at the end.

While chicken is baking, prepare your soup base. Get the biggest pan you have. In it goes 1 chopped-up celery stalk, 1 chopped up small white onion, and lots of chopped up baby carrots. Cover this veggie mix with water, just enough to cover them. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, let it sit there and simmer until most of the water is soaked up, making the veggies soft. You can add salt & pepper, maybe even butter to this mix, to tantalize whoever else is in the house that you managed to convince you were an adequate cook and these chicken & dumplings are worth waiting for.

Once all the water is soaked up by the veggies, make it seem like you’re doing even more work in the kitchen by pouring in a can of chicken broth, stir it up good. This will be the base, whatever that is.

At this point, the chicken in the oven will be still cooking, and you really don’t have anything else to do until about 45 more minutes, so turn on some mellow classic rock from the 70’s and get some coffee or tea or something. Then just sit there.

Now, go find more cans of chicken broth. There should be about 5 more cans in your pantry. Don’t open them yet, just get them ready. You don’t know how many will actually be used, until the end.

Is the chicken done? Judge for yourself, I can’t help you there.

If it is, take it out, let it cool. Go ahead and dump all the good juices into the veggie mix and stir it up well. By now, the house will be smelling heavenly and everyone in there will think you’re the best cook ever. This is all part of the plot. (you’re welcome.)

Once the chicken is cool, wash your dirty hands and begin pulling all the meat off the bones, feeling carefully for small bones. Do the whole chicken. Pull the meat apart into nice sized pieces, make it tantalizing little bites. Some will end up shredded so don’t make them too small. Dump all the chicken into the veggies, it should fill up the pan about halfway.

Now comes the fun part. Get the rest of your cans of chicken broth and pour them in, one at a time, until the pan is almost full. Now get 2 cans of buiscuits from the fridge. Maybe you should have done this earlier, but open them up and separate them and pull each buiscuit into 4 pieces and roll it up good. Hence, “dumplings”.

Drop them in one at a time, stir, wait a minute or two, let them sink to the bottom before you add more, or else the dumplings will cook together and stick and swell up too big like tumors and you will cry because you worked so hard to get to this point.

While you’re doing this, keep the heat on medium. Everyone within a 1 mile radius should be salivating by this point. If you’re married, your spouse will be looking into how and where you can get your vows renewed.

Just figure out the rest from there, I really don’t know at what point this meal is officially “ready”. I guess when it smells and looks good. Add lots of salt & pepper as it’s cooking, even a dash of garlic powder here and there, for special effects.

In the end you should have enough grub to last for a few days. The leftovers are delicious.

When you go to wash the big pan it was cooking in, get a good scrubber thing, as the bottom might be burnt on account of the dumplings that ended up at the bottom for too long.

Enjoy!