Chicken & Dumplings

My Fweetie moved back up to Salt Lake City Monday (sadface), and my mom went with him to help him unpack and settle in.  With mom gone for a week, the other men-folk in my family will inevitably starve to death.  So I have decided to take dinner-matters into my own hands, and continue to develop as a Domestic Goddess!

Me and Colby circa 1984

Last night, I rummaged around the gigantor freezer in the garage and found some quick and tasty frozen pasta meals, so I made those for everyone.  Then I figured I may as well get something in mind for Tuesday night.  The more I thought about it, the more I dreaded coming home from a long day at work, preparing and cooking a meal, and then doing my homework.  All work and no play makes Morg a dull girl. 

Just then, I remembered that while my cooking skills are not on par with those of say Professional-Chef-BF, the Crock Pot is MY BEST FRIEND!  I asked the guys what they wanted for dinner tomorrow, beef, pork, or chicken.

Chicken.

OK, hmm, what does my mom have in the pantry that goes with chicken....

After naming off a few ideas, all shut down, I stumbled on a very basic Chicken & Dumplings recipe.  I like bread, but I like doughy bread even more.  It's settled, I decided we would have Chicken & Dumplings for dinner tomorrow.  The recipe, with only three ingredients - Chicken, biscuits, Cream of Chicken - while convenient and easy, sounded a little.  So I decided to dress it up a bit and came up with this recipe:

{Click to Enlarge - I made the recipe card myself, however I  drew inspiration from IHeart Organizing's blog!  I L♥VE her!}

This is actually a compilation of about five different Chicken & Dumplings recipes I found online.  Knowing that I am not going to wake up early enough to prepare this at six in the morning, I decided to get most of the meal prepared tonight, so that I can just dump it in tomorrow.

I set the chicken breasts and biscuits in the fridge to thaw overnight. 

I chopped all of the required vegetables and put them in a container in the fridge, as well as mixed the Cream of Chicken soup and Chicken Broth in a separate container.

I also pre-measured out all of the spices and put them into a Ziploc baggie.

I did have to make some substitutions because we didn't have everything I needed, and I didn't feel like going to the grocery store because  the new he's-kind-of-a-jerk-but-he's-hot Bachelor was on.  Thank goodness for google, because I was able to find just the substitutions I needed!  (Seriously, I L♥VE Google)  They are as follows:

2-3 Cloves Garlic - I only had Minced Garlic.  The standard conversion is:

1 clove = 1 teaspoon chopped garlic = 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic = 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder = 1/2 teaspoon garlic flakes = 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic = 1/2 teaspoon garlic juice

1 Onion -  I only had Onion Powder.  The standard conversion is:

1 small onion = 1/3 cup = 1 teaspoon onion powder = 1 tablespoon dried onion flakes

I also read somewhere - and BF confirmed - that when cooked, apples have the same flavor and texture as onions, so I threw 1/2 of a chopped apple in along with the onion powder.

1 Bay Leaf - I didn't have this either, or anything "bay."  I read on numerous google searches that 6 Juniper Berries could be substituted for 1 leaf.  Strangely enough, I had Juniper Berries!  I bought them a few months ago while trying this crazy-strange-but-delicious recipe (think strain the food through cheesecloth kind of strange).  So I emptied a tea bag and stuck 4 berries (just in case it was too strong of a flavor) in it, and re-tied it with the string.  This way, no one eating will bite into a very flavorful dried berry, I can just take out the bag after cooking.

On my lunch break today I came home and cut the chicken...

Threw in my pre-chopped veggies, and spices, and then covered with the soups and turned on the pot!

Then, I tore each biscuit into 5-7 pieces and put them back in the fridge before going back to lunch... Total time spent, 10 minutes!

So that's it!  It seems a bit complicated, but from finding the recipes, to consolidating them, to googling substitutions and preparation, it took me about 30 minutes.  I hope it turns out, I'd hate to get off work tomorrow, and be hungry, and have to find something else to eat, because this turns out to be a wash... Wish me luck!

UPDATE!!

This is what was waiting for us after work/school!  It kind of looked like puke, but the smell was AMAZING!

We just finished dinner, and oh my goodness it was delicious.  I really hate to toot my own horn, but I am a crock pot genius!  Everyone else thought so too!

kind of copied