Weeknight Chicken & Dumplings

Um... hi. Remember me? Yeah, I'm still here. I know I disappeared for a while. It was unplanned but absolutely necessary as we've been crazy busy being alive. My baby was here and we ate and played and watched a lot of Parks and Recreation. It was awesome. I missed you, but not enough to look away.

We also spent a weekend in England catching up with an old friend to a fantastic Beatles soundtrack. Then we had different friends stay at our house for the weekend. In your reader's world, this has already happened. In my writer's world, I'm still anticipating. I predict it will be full of good food and tons of laughter. Life is good.

I'm sharing a recipe that I never dreamed I'd love as much as I do. This Weeknight Chicken & Dumplings is seriously awesome. Due to my vegetable aversion, I'd actually never eaten chicken and dumplings before, but now that I've tried this recipe, I want to eat it once a month. It's the sage in the dumplings that really make this addictive.

I've called this Weeknight Chicken & Dumplings because I took some shortcuts that made this simple enough to make any day of the week. I used store bought chicken stock and pre-cooked chicken, so all you really have to do is chop some vegetables and mix up a batter. Everything else happens in the pot while you check Instagram or something probably better. I hope you have leftovers because you'll be sad if you only get to eat this for one day.

Life moves fast, but you still have to eat. You might as well make it awesome. Weeknight Chicken & Dumplings is a great place to start.

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Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1 small onion, finely diced

• 1 stalk celery, finely diced

• 1 carrot, finely diced

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 6 cups chicken stock

• 2 cups cooked chicken, cubed

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• ⅛ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon black pepper

• 1 teaspoon dried sage

• 1 teaspoon mustard powder

• 1-½ tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold

• 2 teaspoons lard, very cold

• ½ cup buttermilk, very cold

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Instructions

• Heat the oil in a large pot over medium low heat, then add your onions, celery, carrots and garlic, and cook until tender for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add the stock to your pot, clamp a lid on, crank up the heat t bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer for about 10 minutes.
• While your vegetables are simmering, mix up your dumpling dough. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, sage, and mustard powder to a large mixing bowl and whisk them gently to combine everything. Add the cold butter and lard, and use your fingers to mix this together until you have a coarse, shaggy mixture.
• Stir your buttermilk into your dry ingredients quickly but gently so you don't overmix and have tough dumplings.
• Use your cookie scoop or a soup spoon to scoop out your dumpling dough. You can form them into a ball first or add them straight off the scoop gently into your simmering soup pot. You'll have about 12 dumplings.
• Put the lid back on the pot and let the dumplings cook for about 10 minutes over medium low heat.
• Add your chicken to the pot, and stir it through gently to distribute the chicken, but try not to bust your tender dumplings. Let this all simmer together for about five minutes.
• Check your seasonings, then serve piping hot to people you think are awesome.