‘Chicken and Noodles’ is something Andrew and I came to dread when we lived in Ohio.  It was goopy, tasteless, colorless and just blah.  Granted, it was usually cooked in massive amounts to feed a herd of hungry, less-than-picky Midwesterners.  It’s not like I was expecting gourmet, but still.

Anyway, so when I found a recipe for Chicken and Dumplings from Cooking Light’s newest book, ‘Lighten Up, America!’  I don’t have the book, but the recipe was featured in a recent issue of the magazine.  In that same vein, I don’t get the magazine anymore, either.  (Not enough time to read it with school!)  So, all I have is my magazine cut-out.

ANYWAY.  I decided to give dumplings a try.  Why not?

Glad I did–Andrew loved it and I enjoyed making it.

 

Basically, it’s a recipe that takes you from making your own chicken stock as the base (with extra for the freezer!) to plopping little flour-and-buttermilk dumplings into the simmering stock.

I loved that for basically the cost of a 4-lb chicken and some basics (onion, celery, carrot), I got 16 cups of stock and three or four meals out of it, two of which are bagged and labeled in the freezer for a busy night once school starts.  You simply boil the chicken with celery and onion, then strain it all out and shred the chicken.

I also thought this was an excellent way to make chicken noodle soup by omitting the dumplings and adding egg noodles, or whatever noodle you like.