Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

These ingredients and about 6 hours are all you need to have scrumptious, delicious chicken and dumplings. They are a staple in Southern cuisine. Or at least in my opinion they are! My great grandmother used to cook a chicken all day, take it out and pull the meat off the bones, put it back in the pot, make dumplings from scratch...etc. It was an all-day, labor intensive sort of meal. It was delicious. But I simply am not going to do that. Sorry. I guess she just loved her family more than I do! haha.

So I found a lazy dumpling recipe online and modified it quite a bit. This recipe is one I look forward to every month. Although it has been a long fight for my husband he has finally got me to eat leftovers and this recipe makes a TON of food. So we end up eating dumplings for about a week honestly. But they are just as good warmed over as they are fresh. Honest!

Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings

*4 chicken breasts
*1 large can of Cream of Chicken condensed soup
*2 cans of jumbo buttermilk biscuits
*1 medium white onion
*2-3 Tbsp of butter/margarine
*Water
*2 Tbsp corn starch
*Salt & pepper

If the chicken is frozen (which mine always is) start it thawing. I pop 4-5 breasts in a bowl and microwave them about 5-6 minutes. That usually thaws them out. While they're cooking I put the cream of chicken soup in the pot and turn it onto high. Take the now empty soup can and fill it with hot water, add that to the pot. Then fill it up about 1/4 again, add 2 Tbsp of cornstarch and stir it to mix well. Cornstarch mixes easier in small amounts of water. Then add the cornstarch mix to the crockpot.

Next dice up the onion and add it to the pot. The chicken should be done so it is time to get it out of the bowl (EWW!), cut it into chunks (more EWW!) and add it to the pot. Then thoroughly wash your hands and all surfaces. Icky chicken.

Okay, next you'll want to add your butter. And salt and pepper to taste. I usually just cover the top of the mix with pepper and then the same with the salt and add more in as it cooks. Of course you can always add more in later but its really hard to take it out if you add too much! I don't typically measure spices unless I'm baking and it needs to be precise. When I'm cooking it is more about the smell of the dish and the taste. So I don't really know how much I add of those things!

Once everything is in the pot, turn it on high for 4-6 hours or low for 6-8. Now, the biscuits do NOT go in until later. They need to just chill out in the fridge all day.

Either before you add the biscuits in or while the chicken is cooking, you can break the chicken up some more if you want. You can also leave the chicken breasts whole and use two forks to shred the chicken. Or you can just leave it in chunks. Either way you prefer.

If you're cooking it on high, then after 4 hours (after about 6 on low) you can add the biscuits. Just tear the biscuits up and plop them in. After 30 minutes, or when the top layer of biscuits looks less mushy, stir the biscuit layer so the ones on top are on the bottom. This will get them all good and moist without overcooking any. But they won't be doughy in the middle. Another 30 minutes after that the dumplings should be done. I usually let mine simmer probably another hour or so on low until all the dumplings are mushy-bread looking.

Everyone in my family will actually eat these bad boys. And my husband and I take them to work for a couple of days. And I usually take some to my parents to enjoy. There is definitely PLENTY to go around from this recipe. If you aren't a fan of leftovers, I recommend halving what I have listed. Hope you enjoy!

Italian Chicken Stew

In my house, we don't eat a lot of red meat. There are several reasons but the main one is that white meat is just so much better for you. Every once in a blue moon I get a hankering for a cheeseburger, but other than that...we pretty much just use turkey in all our recipes and chicken as our stand alone meat.

I love making soups and stews because they have a lot of healthy ingredients and they're so filling while typically being pretty low calorie. I like trying new, different types of recipes and this one definitely fit the bill. It's an Italian chicken stew that simmers in a red wine sauce. This is such a hearty, wholesome dish. Very filling! Plus it is just so pretty. No really. It's a nice colorful dish.

Italian Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

*4-5 chicken breast
*1 can sliced carrots
*1 can dark red kidney beans
*1 can Northern beans
*1 can diced tomatoes
*1 bunch of celery

*1 small can tomato paste
* Italian seasoning
*Garlic powder 
* 3/4 cup dry red wine
*1 cup water
* Salt and Pepper
*1 Tbsp sugar

To start with you need to make sure your chicken is thawed. I typically just buy the big bags of frozen chicken at the store. So I get out four or five chicken breasts and either leave them in the fridge for a day or microwave them for about 4 minutes. Then slice the chicken into bite size bits and place in the crock pot. Then add the carrots (drained), kidney beans (drained) and Northern beans (drained).

I get the can of diced tomatoes that has Italian seasoning in it already. Don't drain it, dump that can in, juice and all. Then chop up the celery (you'll want at least 1 cup chopped...I use probably twice that but I like celery) and add that in. Add in a LARGE amount of garlic powder, some salt and a healthy dose of pepper. I'm sorry that I never measure those things. I just shake it in until I have the smell I want.

In a separate bowl, mix the cup of water, 1/2 can of tomato paste, 3/4 cup of dry red wine, 1 Tbsp and a couple of tablespoons of Italian seasoning. Either whisk the ingredients or stir briskly with a fork, either way, just make sure they're good and blended. Then pour that mixture over the ingredients in the pot and mix well.

Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 5-6 hours.

I have tried letting this recipe marinate over night in the refrigerator and couldn't tell much difference in the end result.

The thing I DON'T like about this recipe is that it takes about a half hour to prepare. All the can opening, chopping and mixing are time consuming. However, it works pretty well to make it the night before and leave the pot in the fridge over night (I have a crock pot that the ceramic "pot" part comes out for cleaning etc) so you can just put the pot in the cooker and let it cook all day while you're at work.

One variation would be to use chopped garlic cloves instead of garlic powder. It does enhance the flavor a bit but I almost never have garlic cloves in the house and never remember to get them so I just use powder. It works and it is one less thing to chop. But you should try it both ways if you're motivated.

This stew goes really well with some Jiffy sweet corn muffins. It's such a delicious and filling stew that it doesn't really need any sides or anything. It's good all by itself!

Hope you enjoy!

Let me know what you think.

Buffalo Slow-Cooker Chicken

Okay, I know I keep doing crock pot recipes. And then I talk about delicious they are and people message me on wanting the recipes. But I never can remember to message them back! So, I am going to try to write out some of my favorite recipes on here this week.

Coming up: Crock pot lasagna, Chicken and Dumplings, and Italian Chicken Stew.

TODAY you are in for a special treat though. Because this is some of the best buffalo chicken I have had in a long time. To give credit where due, I found the recipe originally on Pinterest. But I tweaked it a bit and so would like to share my version with you. Tweaking was minimum, but feel free to change it up to YOUR tastes.

Buffalo Slow-Cooker Chicken

This chicken was VERY juicy and oozy and oh-so-deliciously messy. If you don't want it this juicy, use less hot sauce and butter. Yes, that is corn on the cob and deviled eggs served alongside. I thought they went really well together. Would also go well with some mustard greens or mashed potatoes or maybe even some Texas fries. It has a spicy, buffalo taste but it's not a heartburn-inducing, fire-breathing type spicy. If you want it spicier you might experiment with different sauces or maybe try adding a couple of sliced jalapenos when you cook it. That would definitely up the intensity!

Ingredients:

*3 lb frozen chicken breast
*1 jar of buffalo sauce
*1 packet ranch mix
*butter (or margarine)
*salt and pepper

For mine, I used Texas Pete Buffalo Sauce and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix. Both are found in the salad dressing aisle of my local grocery store. Which also sells frozen chicken breast in a 3 lb bag! How convenient. My favorite part of this recipe? You put the chicken in frozen. No nasty thawing and cutting up cold, icky chicken. I HATE that. Yuck. And I am so paranoid about salmonella in uncooked chicken so I have to clean furiously before, during and after dealing with raw chicken. So it's a relief to just dump the chicken in the pot without having to touch it.

I did remember to put my frozen chicken in the fridge the night before. So it was a little defrosted. But the recipe assured me it didn't matter.

So, take your chicken, your buffalo sauce and your ranch mix and put all three into the crock pot. That's right. The whole bottle of buffalo sauce and the seemingly random ranch mix. Trust me, you want the ranch. It adds a lil spunk to the flavor. You'll love it!

Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. My crock pot is overzealous with the heat and my chicken only needed 5 hours. You can cook it longer without fear of burning or overcooking so if you're putting it in and heading off to an 8 hour work day, don't stress it. If you work 12 hour shifts though, somebody is going to need to come tend your chicken. 12 hours would leave your chicken a blackened mess I'm sure!

So, after that time, take the chicken breasts out (leave the sauce!) and shred them. Just use two forks and pull the breasts apart. I thought this was going to be a pain but once I got the hang of it, shredding the chicken wasn't bad. Took me about 10 minutes but I am pretty handicapped when it comes to cutting, slicing or shredding. So, I figure it would take the average person about 5 minutes.

After the chicken is thoroughly shredded, return it to the pot and add margarine/butter. I used 4 Tbsp of butter. Not margarine. The recipe calls for 2 Tbsp margarine but I am a fan of the butter. It made the end result chicken much juicier (review the above picture!). The next time I cook this I think I will use just 2 Tbsp to see how it turns out. But I will continue to use butter instead of margarine. It is just so much tastier! So, add that in. Also add in salt and pepper. I thoroughly salted and peppered. Then cover it back up and let it cook another hour or two. You want the chicken to absorb as much of the sauce as it can so the longer the better really. Mine simmered about 2 hours on low.

My house smelled delicious all day. And after taking a sample of the chicken when I shredded it, it was hard to resist dipping back into the pot the rest of the evening and continuing to sample it. It was so good!

This is definitely the easiest recipe I have done in the crock pot. And I will definitely be doing it again! I hope you all enjoy! Let me know how it goes! And if you make any alterations then make a comment and tell me how it turns out! I would love to try your version too!