Another recipe (Chicken Dumpling Soup)

A request was made by Paul last night for me to make Chicken Dumpling soup again :0)
Whew! At least there are SOME meals of mine that he likes!!!!

The soup itself utilizes our own chicken meat that we raise. The breasts are usually reserved for chinese recipes or home-made chicken-strips. The legs/thighs aren't a family favorite, so they are PERFECTLY utilzed in soups!!!!!! (Chicken noodle is another family favorite).

I don't follow a strict recipe for the soup portion; whatever we have on-hand. Carrots, beans, onions, potatoes, celery... Naturally, during harvest time, we have ALL of this on-hand ('cept Celery :0( Too bad, I LOVE celery in soups!!!!) :0) I added about 1-1.5 cups of carrots and potatoes to the soup today; only a handful of cut-up beans from Cassie's plant (that I had FORGOTTEN about!!!!), and a medium onion that has started to flower this past week.

I usually put the legs/thighs (from one chicken) in the crock-pot on high for a few hours with 4-cups of water; to the point the meats falls off the bone (no seasonings yet). I set the meat aside (to cool) and strain the liquid into a soup-pot. I add 8 more cups of water to the pot and then add enough Chicken-boullion to the liquid as prescribed by the package. I'll admit....this boullion is the SELLING POINT of the soup!!!! It adds the PERFECT amount of flavoring! I've tried both the boullion cubes AND the boullion "paste"---I like both equally well.

Anyway----once veggies are chopped up, they get added to the soup and boiling....
While that's cooking (~15 minutes???), I start cutting up (pulling apart) the chicken meat.
Once I add the meat, I start mixing up the Dumpling recipe. THIS is the part that I follow without making any changes since I found this yummy version on Cooks.com :0)
The ingredients:
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. white or black pepper
1 egg, well beaten
2 tbsp. melted butter
2/3 c. milk


On a quilting note: I DID make up 5 labels today!!!!! But then found myself "resting my eyes" at 1:00, and haven't sewn them to the actual quilts yet.......(the LABELS, not my eyes!!!) :0)