Chicken & Dumplings

This is so good, especially on a cold day. The easy to make dumplings make their own gravy as they cook. This is one of my favorite chicken dishes. It makes extra chicken broth so bag it and freeze it. It is really tasty in other dishes.

Chicken & Dumplings
3 quarts of water
1 bay leaf
1 3-4 pound chicken, cut up
1 tsp dried parsley
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 small onion, sliced
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, peeled and quartered

For Dumplings:
2 cups flour
1 ¼ tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp milk

Bring water to boil, add chicken, 1 tsp salt, onion, garlic, bay leaf and parsley. Reduce heat to simmer and cook uncovered about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Liquid will reduce by about one third.
When chicken has cooked, remove it from the pot and set aside. Strain stock (into a large bowl) to remove all vegetables and scum. You want to save this stock! Toss everything else out. Pour 6 cups of the stock back into the pot and save the rest for other recipes. Add pepper, ½ tsp salt and the lemon juice, then reheat stock while making the dumplings.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine all dumpling ingredients. Stir well with wooden spoon and let rest 5-10 minutes.
Roll dough out on lightly floured surface to ½ inch thickness. Use a pizza cutter to cut dough into ½ inch squares and drop each square into the simmering stock. Use all of the dough. The dumplings will swell and then partially dissolve into a nice gravy. Simmer for 20minutes. Stir often.
While dumplings are cooking, shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Add to pot and stir. Simmer 5 minutes more.
Serves 4-6