[BarefootBetsy]

Here's what I do - completely homemade and it takes a while to prep but it's SO worth it! The best chicken and dumplings I've ever tasted and I'm a chicken and dumpling snob I'm quoting from my FB note:

This is normally a recipe I make when I'm going to be gone all day and need to make something for the evening.

I usually put the chicken, covered with water, in the crockpot overnight - bones, skin, and all - for the meat to cook. Sometimes I add carrots. In the morning I pull the chicken off the bones and put the chicken in the fridge (along with the carrots, if any). I transfer the liquid into a large stock pot, add more water (I fill up the pot most of the way) and put the bones and skin back into the pot to simmer all day. I usually also make the dumplings in the morning, cut them out, layer them with flour, and then stick them in the fridge so that I can make them quickly in the evening by dropping them in the pot.

When I get home in the evening, I scoop out the bones with a large shellfish basket thing with a long handle - we've never used it for shellfish, but it works well as a scoop! Any sort of strainer with large holes that fits inside your pot would work. Then I strain the liquid through a fine metal strainer (by pouring it through the strainer into my larger stock pot).

Dumpling recipe:
4 cups flour
2 Tbl butter
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 large well-washed Irish potato, mashed

I first mix the butter with the hot mashed potato (so it gets all melty and easy to mix) and then mix the rest of the ingredients in. Add just enough water to make a dough that you can roll out. Cut into small biscuits (or you could do strips with a pizza cutter - my girls like to use heart cookie cutters) and add to boiling chicken. Cook about 20 to 25 minutes more, being careful not to let the pot boil too hard (don't let it boil over, basically). Keep the pot covered. If you lift the lid after the dumplings are in and let out the steam they will be tough.

~Recipe adapted from the book Georgia Entertains on page 115