Chicken and Dumplings 12-30-09

Well since the soup I made at lunch was a previous failure, I decided to make another dish that I have tried once without success. This would be Chicken and Dumplings. The first time I made this, I did it in the crock pot. The recipe was from allrecipes.com and had lots of wonderful reviews. Well, mine was mush. Baby food mush. So here I am for round 2. This recipe is none other than Tim McGraw's. I can't decide whether just starting out that is a good or bad thing. He doesn't exactly look like a cook, but it is his grandma's and he is southern, so what the hey! He made this with Faith on Oprah. It was featured again on her all-time favorite recipes show. So, if this doesn't turn out, I'm blaming Oprah!

The case:
Ingredients:
* 1 small chicken
* Water
* Pinch of salt
* 1 cup chicken broth
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 tablespoons butter shortening
* 1/2 cup buttermilk

Boil chicken in a pot, adding salt to taste. When tender, pull chicken from the bone and return to the pot, adding broth.

In a bowl, combine shortening and flour, mix together with a pastry cutter, then add buttermilk to form a doughy consistency (similar to how you would make biscuits). Sprinkle flour on cutting board. Pinch off part of the dough and roll into a thin sheet and cut into squares. Drop one square at a time into broth. Continue this until all of the dough is used. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer until tender.

Allow the dumplings to thicken the broth for 2 hours until it is a creamy consistency.

The ruling:
I added half a stick of butter to broth for flavoring. Cracker Barrell has nothing on Tim McGraw... enough said. (If your not from the South, Translation- these are REAL GOOD)