Chicken Dumpling (or Noodle) Soup

Source: a combination of several recipes, trial and error :)

Ingredients:

• 1 Broiler Chicken (remove giblets, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook for 20 minutes PER pound @ 350 degrees; when cooked, remove meat and retain stock)

• 2-3 TB oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1/2-2 stalks celery, diced
• (fresh cut green beans, opt.)
• 6-8 cups chicken broth (stock from cooking chicken plus needed amount of broth to make 6-8 cups; chicken broth in can or box works, or water with bouillon cubes or granules)
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1 TB fresh chopped parsley (or 1 tsp dry parsley)
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:
In cooking oil, sweat onion, carrots, and celery.  Add chicken, stock/broth, celery salt, parsley, bay leaves, and green beans (opt).  Simmer about 30 minutes, until vegetables are tender.  Taste.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add dumplings or noodles :)

Dumplings:

1 cup milk
1 cube butter
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg (opt)
3/4-1 1/2 cups flour
3-4 eggs

Bring milk and butter to boil.  Add salt and nutmeg (if using; Bill definitely prefers his dumplings without the nutmeg, but I thought it was good).  Remove from heat.  Add flour immediately, slowly while stirring rapidly until it leaves the sides of pan, forming a dough.  Beat 1 egg at a time, forming a sticky dough.  Add spoon-sized balls of dumpling dough to top of soup, and simmer until dumplings rise.  **Don't think of dumplings as a biscuit.  They are not meant to be a "soggy" biscuit.  They are more like a biscuit-shaped, buttery noodle.  I've grown to really like them.  This was one of Bill's favorite soups growing up.

Noodles:

1 cup flour
2 eggs
2 TB water

Mix well and roll thin.  Cut into thin noodles.  Add to simmering soup.  Cook until noodles are done.


**This soup could easily be adapted to be gluten-free by using gluten-free flour or flour-free by leaving the dumplings and noodles out.  Could add potatoes, beans (I would use white or black), and/or brown rice to give it more substance if desired, especially when leaving dumplings and noodles out.

***This is one of our favorite soups.  Bill loves dumplings, so that's usually how I make it.