Chicken and Dumplings
Grandma Wilkie was the best cook I have ever met. As a child, we would wait for our annual summer visits, when she would cook up huge vats of Chicken N Dumplins when we came to visit. Grandma Wilkie made everything look so easy, just whipping around her tiny kitchen, a big hen poaching in broth, mixing then rolling noodle dough, peppering, and somehow churning out oatmeal cakes, and a breakfast of the world's best fluffy light biscuits and perfectly cooked eggs.
Grandma cooked from scratch, without measuring anything, recipes etched in her memory. She was the epitome of the Proverbs 31 woman, loving her Jesus, loving everyone with His love, turning out delightful meals, serving all who came, with tons to spare, on an impossibly tiny budget. She was a beloved, wise woman, who prayed for her family, in season and out.
My mom would try to follow her with measuring cups and spoons, trying to capture the family recipes we all loved so dearly, but it was nearly impossible. Somehow, they were locked in Grandma's deft hands and serving heart. Once I moved away from home, sweet Grandma Wilkie succumbed to dementia, living out her days in a nursing home. The dementia ravaged her mind until she barely remembered her family. Yet her love of the Lord was clear, when she would remember the old hymns, singing to her Jesus in sweet moments of clarity. Out of love, and a wish to keep my beloved Grandma, I was determined to recreate her recipes as best as I could.
These are my rendition of her famed Chicken and Dumplings, Southern style, from an Arkansas woman who left after the Dust Bowl and moved to California for better opportunity for her growing family - a woman that prayed for our whole family...until we had all accepted the Lord. When you make Grandma Wilkies Southern Chicken and Dumplings from scratch, your world just seems brighter, you feel her love and her see her smile, and you have just tasted heaven!
Ingredients:
- 1 stewing hen chopped, or a large package of chicken breasts with bone and skin on (6-8)
- 2 quarts homemade Bone Building Broth (or chicken stock)
- Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper
- 2 cups milk (I used fresh raw milk in the photographs)
- 1/2 to 1 cup heavy cream
Dumpling Ingredients
- 5 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (we use Spectrum Organics, but Crisco works great!)
- 1/2 cup COLD Bone Building Broth
In a large stockpot, get the chicken going.