Chicken and Dumplings Recipe

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If you want to talk about an incredible recipe, let’s talk about these Chicken and Dumplings, because, wow.  These are Drop Biscuit style dumplings with fresh chopped vegetables and breast meat from a roasted chicken.  The dumplings are seasoned with herbs and the roasted chicken was marinated in a 24 hour brine, so this recipe is incredible.

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Growing up, I didn’t much like dumplings; at least the way my Mom made’em.  I’d dare say they even made me feel sick.  So when I started out recreating this recipe I had one simple goal in mind; make something I LOVE!  So I roasted the best chicken I could make, I made the best vegetable soup I could come up with and I added the best drop biscuit recipe I had and Viola, this Chicken and Dumplings recipe was born.

If you need a roasted chicken recipe or you need to learn how to carve one, check out the few listed below:

Tin Can Chicken Brine
Jerk Chicken
Cantonese Chicken
Beer Can Chicken
How to Carve a Whole Chicken

Chicken and Dumpling Ingredients:

Dumpling Dough

2 1/2 cups Flour, plus more if needed
3/4 cup Milk,
2 tbsp Butter
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Salt
2 Large Eggs
1/4 cup Fresh Parsley, chopped
1 tsp Ground Sage
1/2 tsp Dill

Chicken Soup

2 1/2 qts Chicken or Vegetable Broth(water and Bouillon is fine)
2 Chicken Breasts, cooked and chopped
2 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tblsp Butter
1/2 Cup carrots, grated
4 Garlic Cloves, chopped
2 Celery Stocks, chopped
1 large leeks, white part only, chopped
1 Onion, chopped
2 tbsp Flour, up to a 1/2 cup for thick soups
1/4 Fresh Parsley, chopped
1 tsp Sage, ground
1 tsp Rosemary, ground
1/2 tsp Dill

Tin Can Chicken Brine

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Using a Chicken Brine is very important if you want a seasoned bird, through and through, and this Tin Can Chicken Brine Recipe is practically Fool proof.  The Pic above is exactly what I used in the filming of this video recipe and the pic below is the final product, spruced up with a fancy cut and some Italian Parsley.

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It’s critical to understand that a Brine doesn’t just season the meat, it keeps the Chicken very moist and tender.   That’s why it’s gaining so much popularity around the holidays.  The best turkeys in the world are marinated in Brine for a minimum of 24 to 48 hours before they are baked or fried.  The secret really lies in the Salt.  I’ve estimated that the proper salt content for a brine is a 1 to 3 ratio, plus additional seasoning.  So if you want to try this recipe let me know how it turns out and what you thought in the comments.   And if you’re interested in learning How to Carve a Whole Chicken or if you’d like a Cantonese Chicken recipe, check out these underlined and/or highlighted links.

Chicken Brine Ingredients:

1/3 #10 Can of Water (3 to 4 cups)
1/3 cup Crawfish Boil Seasoning
1 tsp Sage
1 tbsp Rosemary

Bring half of the water to a boil with the added ingredients and remove from the heat.  Immediately add the rest of the cold water add let it rest for 10 min. before adding to the bird.  Marinate for at least 24 hours before roasting.

Meat, Cheese and Crackers

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As you may or may not know, my family and I celebrated my wife’s Birthday this last weekend.  I received such a good response from some of you on Facebook, wishing my wife a Happy Birthday, that I decided to share one of the things I did for her.  And since it pertains to food I thought you might enjoy this.

As you can see in the photo above, I’ve got 2 plates covered with Cured Meats, Crackers and Cheese.  Which in most places around the world, it can really eat a hole in your wallet.  I mean, it’s no secret that cured meats and cheese can be very pricey.  Especially if you start getting exotic.  Where I live, for example, I can buy 4 oz. of Prosciutto for about $10 bucks.  But, that’s virtually $40 dollars a pound!  Are you kidding me?

So am I telling you that’s what I spent for each one of these cured meats?  No, I’m not and I didn’t even come close to that kind of expense.  The Great thing about food is nobody wants it to go to waste.  So if you hit the markets when they’re in rotation, you’re going to save your self a ton of money.

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Another example, in the above photo I have two different Salami’s; Genoa and Boars Head Black Pepper Salami.  Both are a half pound each and were marked down 50%.  The Prosciutto was only 2 dollars for 3 oz.  But at full price, on any other day, I would’ve spent $20 bucks just for what you see on the plate and when it was all said and done, I walked out the door paying only 1/3 that price.

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Now when it comes to these Cheese’s the price continues to soar. That is, unless you can pick these up on rotation too, and you can.  The funny thing about cheese, however, is you can’t really tell when it goes bad because it stinks when you buy it.  So you’re completely at the mercy of the attendants, swapping out the prices to keep up with the expiration dates.

Between these five cheese’s alone one could spend $40 to $50 dollars all together.  Some of these slices normally range between $8 and $13 bucks a piece.  There’s a Fromager D’affinois Cheese that is very mild and Creamy(top left), a Port Salute(Orange Label) that is mild and creamy as well just a slighly different taste.  The Blue Cheese is obvious, you either like it or you don’t.  The English White Stilton with Blueberry interesting because it’s very sweet and similar to the taste of cheese cake.  And last but not least, the Jarlsberg lite, which is just a fancy way of saying “Deli Swiss”.  And if you’re wondering what’s in the middle, those are my Marinated and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes!

So the night before my wife’s Birthday, we started celebrating each others company with the peace and quiet of the house(after we put the kids to bed), the widescreen with Netflix, a cheap box of wine and some very expensive Meats and Cheese’s that I bought for practically nothing.  And just so you know, I’m not a cheap bastard, I just know how to live and moments like these are priceless! 😉