Dumplings for the Soul!

by Jeeves · February 9, 2017

I have been really sick this week with whatever the latest nasty bug going around is. Chest congestion, achy, plugged up head and a horrible wake you up in the middle of the night barking cough. I just feel like crap! So I haven’t had a chance to pull myself over to the computer to write any posts. I stayed home on Tuesday and for me to miss work for not “feeling good” is a rarity. Yesterday I was feeling a little better and the meds I’m taking seemed to be helping, I decided to get up off the couch and cook something. I had just finished watching The Invasion, by the way not a bad movie, on Netflix and didn’t want to just lie around all day watching TV. I had laid out some chicken that morning and thought I needed something to soothe my soul, something to ignite me to get better. I pondered the idea of making chicken noodle soup and while that would have been much easier – I decided to make Chicken and Dumplings, a favorite request of my daughters. Though when I thought about the all the steps it involved I questioned my choice. Cutting all the vegetables, cooking the chicken, mixing the dumpling batter, rolling it out, cutting it…was it worth all that work?, yep it always is. I have been a fan of many of Cracker Barrel’s offerings and in my opinion they serve really good dumplings, not quite like either of my grandmother’s versions and both of theirs were quite different than each other’s. Grandma Reed always made big fluffy, gooey in the center dumplings that she would drop by the tablespoons into broth or piping hot cooked tomatoes, the latter being my favorite of hers. Grandma Proctor always made what we called chicken and noodles, she would cook a whole chicken with vegetables and then return the meat back to the boiling pot once the bird was cooked. She would mix together what looked like a dozen eggs with flour until she created a stiff yellow batter that she would roll up and slice off, creating these absolutely deliciously chewy BIG and long noodles. I spent a lot of time growing up at her house on Fisher’s Ridge and I always asked for two things, noodles and chocolate upside down cake, both she always lovingly delivered on. My grandmothers were almost complete opposites; yet so much alike in many ways. Grandma Proctor, who was commonly called Granny – well because if you remember the Beverly Hillbillies on TV, she looked remarkably like Granny Clampett. She though was semi-soft spoken, smoked Winston cigarettes and drank pot after pot of black coffee, never made moonshine that I know of, oh and hated cats and dogs! She had eleven children and over thirty grandchildren. Grandma Reed was the kind of grandma that enjoyed getting her hair dressed, going on vacations, makeup, jewelry and clothes. She loved all animals of every kind, a trait she passed on to most all of her family. She on the other hand had a much smaller family with only five children and only eight grandchildren. I knew my Reed family very intimately as a child where it has taken me many years to get to know many of my Proctor family members. The chicken and dumplings I make today are more of the Cracker Barrel variety, pillows of soft yet slightly chewy squares that I roll out thin and cut with a pizza cutter. Squares of goodness swimming in thick chicken gravy like broth, alongside onions, carrots and celery. I’ve discovered the secret to the perfect pot of chicken and dumplings is patience, once the raw dumplings are added to the pot, low and slow is best for the perfect consistency. Cook at least an hour or more on low heat, better yet once the dumplings have cooked some, add to a crockpot on low for a couple hours – definitely worth the wait.
Chicken and Dumpling are my good for the soul food…whether it be Grandma Reed’s big fluffy dumplings or Grandma Proctor’s chewy long noodles. Today remembering my grandmothers and their dumplings has really soothed my soul! Now go try my Chicken and Dumplings recipe…it will be good for your soul!