Well, my very best friend in the kitchen, at least. My crock pot allows me to cook (usually) delicious meals without losing much time with my daughter. I just throw the ingredients in it mid-morning and the meal is ready by the time Brad gets home from work.
My mom gave me this when I moved into my first apartment. I thought I'd use it once every few months to make some chili. That's definitely not the case! It's used multiple times a week and I've cooked everything from barbeque chicken to peach cobbler in it. I would definitely be lost without my beloved crock pot. You'll notice that most of my recipes that I will share on here will incorporate the use of my best friend.
And my chicken and dumplings were no exception.
Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup (I used generic)
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 1 can chicken broth
- 2 pkgs of refrigerated biscuit dough (cheapest of the cheap for this recipe, nothing fancy)
Put chicken breasts, soup, butter, and chicken broth in the crock pot. Add some water if you feel everything isn't submerged enough. Cook on high for 5-6 hours. I flipped the chicken and stirred the concoction every so often, but I'm not sure if it was necessary.
Now the important part, about 90 minutes before you are ready to serve the meal, add your biscuit dough. Each of my packages had 10 biscuits, and I just cut each one into fourths, like so.
And then drop all the little pieces into your crock pot along with the chicken mixture. In those 90 minutes, the dumplings should cook long enough to no longer be raw in the center.
I have to be completely honest. I don't think I had ever actually seen chicken and dumplings before cooking this. I had no idea what it was supposed to look like or what consistency everything was supposed to be. After I added the torn biscuits, I cut up the chicken into little pieces. After that, it kind of broke apart and looked more like shredded chicken. Whatever, it made the house smell heavenly and Brad seemed to really love it! He helped himself to seconds and even brought some for his lunch today.
I also didn't know if chicken and dumplings was a main dish or side dish. So I made some creamed corn and Red Hot Apples. Creamed corn is easy... I just open the can, pour in sauce pan, and warm up. I mastered that recipe years ago. My grandma used to make Red Hot Apples and I've always loved them. Great side dish when you want something a little sweet to go along with your meal.
Red Hot Apples
- 6 or 7 apples (I used a 3 lb bag of Red Delicious, but you can use what you prefer)
- 2 cups sugar
- 6 oz. Red Hot candies (I can find little 1 oz. boxes at my grocery store, they are 5/$1)
- 1/2 cup water
Slice up your apples. Cut off any section that includes seeds or parts of the core. Put all ingredients into a large saucepan.
Cook on medium-high for about 20 minutes (or until they are tender), stirring a few times to make sure everything is mixing together well. And here's what you'll have:
Super easy and definitely a favorite in our house! Again, I really have no idea what I'm doing in the kitchen yet. Not all of my recipes will turn out perfectly, I'm human. But one of my hopes is that this blog will be a go-to resource for my readers when they're in need of some new ideas. Feel free to change up my recipes to better fit your family. For example, chopped onion would probably be great in the chicken and dumplings, but not in our house. Onion is used very sparingly and it's almost always in onion powder form.
If you try one of my recipes, let me know! I don't care if you absolutely hate it (okay, I'll care a little...), but please let me know what you think!
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