Busy Girl's Chicken and Dumplins

Just look at that fat on the right side of the pot! Daisy would be proud.

The other day I visited my good friend Leslie while she put chicken n' dumplins in the pot to cook. Does this ever happen to you? When a friend mentions a certain food, and nothing will do until you have some of the same stuff? The first cool breeze of autumn is upon us and has inspired me to fix up a stew. Leslie's were probably better tasting and definitely better for you, but I just had to give dark meat chicken in the crock pot a shot.

Daisy might actually be rolling in her grave, as I didn't have time to hand-make the dumplings for this go-round, and I wasn't available to monitor stovetop cooking. It was one of those days when I'd dropped by the house around 1 PM to realize there was nothing to eat for supper, yet I still had two more appointments to knock out before the day was over. What to do, what to do... Dump something in the crock pot!

1 cup celery, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2-3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken. I used thighs, but white meat breasts would be much better for you and would have a lot less fat.

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of celery soup

1 teaspoon white pepper, or to taste

1 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

Enough water to cover and make it the consistency you prefer

1 - 12 ounce can of refrigerated biscuits

Handful of mushrooms (optional)

1. Sauté the celery and onion in butter or olive oil until soft.
2. Dump the sautéed celery and onion, chicken, soups, seasonings and water into the crock pot.
3. Set on high for 6 hours.
4. About 3-4 hours in to cooking, flatten out biscuits with a rolling pin and cut into strips.
5. Add the mushrooms if you'd like some (they were an afterthought for me).
6. Add biscuits to crock pot, stir it around, and cover for remaining cook time.
7. The biscuits will float to the top and probably brown. When cooking is done, just stir it all up and break chicken into pieces.
8. Prepare to have some meat put on your bones.

Did you notice I said "about 3-4 hours in to cooking?" Well, I'm not exactly sure when I added the dumplins: it was in between those two afternoon appointments, and I was kind of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, if you'll excuse the pun. Since crock pot recipes are pretty forgiving, I bet you could put the chicken on low heat when you leave for work, then add the dumplins right when you get home and kick it up to high so they'll be ready in a couple of hours. This stuff keeps great and is better the next day.

This recipe was adapted from one found at AllRecipes.com.