OLD TIME CHICKEN WITH BISQUICK DUMPLINGS

Steps:

• 1. Remove the innards of the chicken along with the neck. You can discard them or cook them in a separate pot of water for your pets for a delicious treat!
• 2. Place entire chicken, peeled onion, and bay leaves in a large pot of water. Make sure water covers chicken. Cook for 1 hour.
• 3. Remove pot from heat. Take chicken out of the water and place on a large dish to cool for 10 - 15 minutes, or until able to touch without burning yourself. Also, remove the onion, using a spoon is easiest, and the bay leaves from the water and discard. The onion can be used for seasoning if you'd still like more onion flavor.
• 4. Once the chicken is cooled enough to work with, peel the skin and bones off the chicken, only placing the meat back into the pot of now chicken broth. The meat should be in bite size chunks that don't need to be cut up to enjoy.
• 5. Turn the heat under the pot back on. If you would like, you can add the chicken bouillon cubes to the pot too. Heat to boil.
• 6. While waiting for the chicken to boil, take the Bisquik and milk and mix together using a wooden cook spoon until mixed well for the dumplings.
• 7. Once the pot is boiling, turn the heat down to medium and use a teaspoon to drop spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture into the pot until you have no more dumplings to drop into the pot. (I found that if you have a spoonful of dough on the spoon and place it in the boiling water, the dough falls off prettily nicely.)
• 8. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes and then cook covered for 10 more minutes.
• 9. Enjoy! Tastes great with a little salt and pepper! I prefer to also use a little bit of a German seasoning that I grew up calling Aromat but the can says Fondor and it's by Maggi.
• 10. NOTES: I use the biggest pot I own (I think it's about 5qt) for this recipe. The chicken alone needs to get covered with the water to begin with and after that, the dumplings add some height to it. So my large pot is big enough for it all, thankfully. You can use a whole chicken (like I do, since that's what I grew up seeing and doing) or you can use boneless pieces like the breasts, legs, thighs, or whatever parts you want. If you don't use a whole chicken, I'd suggest using the skinless pieces since it's easier to just rip apart and throw in the part without having to deal with skinning it as well. I don't normally put any vegetables in it besides the onion, but when I do, I normally throw in carrots (shredded, julienne, or chopped) and celery for some added nutrients. It's completely up to you though! You can probably added corn, green beans, broccoli, etc in it if you really wanted to. Thanks for all the comments! I read each and every one of them and all the great feedback makes me want to create more recipes and even share any family recipes I come across!