Chicken and Dumplings...From Scratch

With the weather cooling down, I wanted to make something hearty. We have both been battling a cold, so I knew some chicken soup would help us start to get better. Well the hubs, as I have mentioned previously, is quite the picky eater. If I was to make a yummy chicken noodle soup, he would only eat the chicken and the noodles and pick out all the vitamin packed veggies. In order to avoid wasting all those yummy veggies, I decided I would make chicken and dumplings. I saw Tyler Florence making his from scratch while watching the Food Network, and I was inspired. The dumplings were way too dense (I used a Paula Deen recipe). They may benefit from adding more water. They were tasty, but still not perfected.

Chicken and Dumplings
(Printable Recipe)

1 whole raw chicken, rinsed
1 whole garlic head
Seasonings to your taste (I used a McCormick Montreal Chicken spice and salt, but feel free to use fresh herbs- which my kitchen lacks currently)
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup flour
1/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp ice cold water
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. In a large stock pot, place chicken and spices. Cut through equator of garlic head and place in pot (leave skin on). Cover chicken with water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 1 hour.
2. Remove chicken from the water. Strain stock over large bowl (make sure to reserve stock as this will be the broth part of the gravy). When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove skin and shred chicken.
3. In same large empty stock pot, over medium high heat- melt butter. Add flour and cook for 1 minute. Add stock to pot and bring to a boil. Stir in can of cream of chicken soup and allow boil. If gravy is to thin, you may make a slurry of 1 Tbsp of corstarch and 1/4 cup water and add to pot. Allow this to boil to thicken. Add chicken to gravy. Meanwhile prepare the dumplings.
4. In a medium bowl combine flour, salt and cold water. Mix to combine (will be stiff dough, but you may want to add more water as mine were VERY dense). Roll dough out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut dough into 2 inch squares. Drop dough into boiling liquid. Stir so all dumplings may sink and cook in the gravy. Allow to cook until dumplings are floating and 2 minutes more.

Now you can add veggies to this recipe if you like. For me, I made a bag of frozen mixed veggies and served my helping over that.
Instead of these dumplings, you can also make a drop dumpling using a biscuit mix. These turn out light and fluffy instead of the doughy dumplings.