Holy cow, it seems like grocery prices go up every single week. However, cooking from home still saves you money. Have you gone out to eat at a restaurant lately? You need a second mortgage to pay for dinner!

You may recall that when my wife returned to the paid workforce my kids were up in arms. They had been used to homemade meals and now they felt assaulted by having to eat fast food and frozen pizza. My work schedule had changed as I was on the forefront of using telemedicine and was home at dinner time a few days a week. They asked me to make dinners, but I refused! Well, actually I didn’t refuse, I said that I would start cooking, but they would need to become my assistants. I had the devious plan to teach them how to cook real food from scratch. I also wanted to educate them on my way of cooking. I shop frugally, plan carefully, and clean up as I go.

Despite my crafty subterfuge they seemed excited to join “Cooking with Dad, Thursdays.” In reality, we had a lot of fun as I taught them practical cooking skills. Over time, my cooking role increased to more days a week and each time I would post a gather time on our group chat, and they would show up. We talked, told jokes, and laughed as we cook and it was everyone’s responsibility to clean up after we ate. They all became competent cooks.

This weekend brought a special treat as two my my daughters were visiting, and my son was home. It was time for a special edition of “Cooking with Dad.”

I like to eat out of my pantry and so I gathered the ingredients that we needed to make a hearty chicken and dumpling soup (or stew if you make it a bit thicker). I always like to credit the originators of a recipe, but I can’t in this instance as I heavily modified it and I can’t remember the original source. Alas.

This is a very flexible recipe that uses simple ingredients and an electric pressure cooker. You could easily adjust the time and make this dish in a Dutch oven on the stove if that is what you have. The ingredients are very flexible, so I won’t list quantities, but I’ll be more specific in the photos.

Ingredients

Butter and oil

Carrots/Celery/Onions

Chicken/Chicken Broth

Seasoning

Dumplings

1 and 1/4 cups flour

2 t baking powder

1t salt

2T melted butter

1/2 C warmed milk

Place your electric pressure cooker on saute and add some cooking oil and butter.

Add cut up/chopped onions, carrots, and celery. The amount we used was 1 onion, 3 stalks celery, and a small bunch of carrots. You can vary your amounts based on what you have on hand. These amounts were what we had on hand. Soften the vegetables for a few minutes.

I added a big spoon of “jarlic,” but fresh garlic or ever garlic powder would work. Cook for another minute. If you are using powdered garlic, just add it and go to the next step.

I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper. I had eight chicken thighs, but you can use less, perhaps four if that is all you have. You can use any type of chicken: a cut up chicken, breast meat only, chicken strips, whatever you have on hand. I removed the skin and bones after the chicken was cooked.

The seasoning is simple. I added a heaping teaspoon of poultry seasoning. You could add a little more or a little less, and it would be fine. I added around 1/3 of a teaspoon of black pepper and about 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt. I also added a bay leaf. I went light on the salt as I would be adding bouillon, which is salty. I adjust the spices at the end of cooking. I mixed the spices in and cooked them for about 30 seconds before moving on to the next step.

My daughter mixed up 5 cups of water with some chicken-flavored, Better Than Bouillon. If you had homemade broth or boxed broth that would work too. If you use less chicken, go with 4 cups of liquid.

I added the chicken into the pressure cooker (Instant Pot) and pressure cooked for 13 minutes. These were large thighs, if I had smaller pieces I would have pressure cooked for around 10 minutes. I immediately released the pressure when cooking time was done.

This is what the dish looked like after pressure cooking.

My son removed the chicken and shredded the meat using two forks. He discarded the skin and bones.

I mixed up the dough ingredients. You don’t want to over mix; it will look a bit rough.

I took the dough out of the bowl and folded it over a few times to form a ball. Then I placed it on a floured surface and rolled it out to no more than 1/8″ thick. I have a rolling pin, but you could use anything heavy and round, including an old wine bottle. You can see that this isn’t a professional rolling job. It doesn’t matter. I cut the dough (very roughly) into 1″ x 2″ squares. A pizza cutter would be ideal, but I just used my knife.

The pressure cooker was placed again on saute until the contents were bubbling. Then my other daughter added the dumplings individually so they wouldn’t stick together. She pressed them down in the liquid with a spatula to gently submerge them. The dumplings were cooked for 10 minutes to fully cook them.

Towards the end of the dumpling cooking time I added around 2 tablespoons of corn starch mixed in a equal amount of cold water to the bubbling mixture. This will thicken the soup.

I put around 3/4 of a cup (you can vary this from 1/2 C to 1C) of sour cream in a bowl and added around 1/3 cup of the hot soup to temper the sour cream. This will prevent it from curdling when you add it to the soup. I added this to the soup for a creamy quality. If you don’t have sour cream you could use heavy cream, half and half, whole milk or even condensed milk. each would impart their own quality, but it would still be delicious.

Here it is ready to be served. Oops, I forgot to remove the bay leaf! I do that now.

All served up. My daughter made some cornbread. I like adding a slice to the soup and breaking it up. My wife contributed by making an excellent tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad. It was a delicious dinner. It fed 5 adults, and there are leftovers for around 3 lunches.

This is a great recipe because it is so flexible, and it uses ingredients that most have around the house. If you have less chicken use a little less broth (4 cups instead of 5). Use whatever chicken you have, it is all good. Vary the vegetables quantity (within reason) as you wish. Use homemade both, boxed broth, or (as I often do) water plus bouillon or Better Than Bouillon. Don’t have sour cream? Try heavy cream, or even evaporated milk. I bet cream cheese would work.

Add a simple bread product (even crackers) and the meal is complete. My wife’s salad was a wonderful addition, but it is an extra and not required as the soup already has vegetables in it.

Don’t have an electric pressure cooker? You can certainly make this on the stove, it will just take longer to cook.

This seems like a winter soup, but we just had it on a hot August day. We enjoyed it just as much as if we made it in January.

Don’t be afraid to cook, you have to start somewhere. Give this soup a try.

Peace

Mike