Spicy Chicken & Dumplings {super easy}

Kickin' Chicken & Dumplings

I want to share this family favorite recipe with a little twist. These inexpensive dumplings are easy to make and are the perfect home cooked meal on a cold night!

Here's what you need:
1 1/2 cups flour
3 T butter (softened)
5 t water
1 egg
1 T pepper
1 t salt
4-6 cans chicken broth (depends on how "soupy" you like your dumplings.  I would rather have 4, but Brad would rather have 6, so we settled on 5.)
4 chicken breast
spicy seasoning: here is the one I used and is one of my personal favs

After trimming the fat off the chicken, cover it in seasoning then set aside.
Mix together the flour, butter, water, egg, salt and pepper to make the dough for your dumplings.  This takes a little elbow grease, but will pay off in the end,
Separate the dough in half and roll each out pretty thin (I'm thinking like 1/8" thick).
Leave the dough rolled out to "dry" for about twenty minutes. 
During this time grill your chicken and cut into bite size pieces.
Go ahead and put the broth on the stove on high heat.
Cut your dough into 1 inch vertical strips with a butter knife.  Then cross-cut every 2 inches, so you have 1X2 strips.  When broth is boiling drop (carefully) dumplings into broth.
Leave on high heat about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.  Taste test a dumpling to see if it's ready.  When the dumplings are cooked and the chicken and reduce heat to low.  Give the dumplings about five or ten minutes to soak up some broth and then ENJOY!!! 

  

Quick tips:  To pick up the pace you can get a rotisserie chicken instead of grilling your own!  This is enough for Brad and I to have dinner and have for lunch the next day- so I guess I could say it serves 4 people.  It's very easy to double the recipe and freeze half of batch for a quick dinner another night.  Don't forget to put leftovers in the fridge!

Cost:  I had everything I needed except for the chicken and eggs.  I got the 4 fresh chicken breasts in the manager's special section at Kroger for $2.69.  A 1/2 eggs cost me $1.19.
I have a huge stock of chicken broth on hand from a Kroger sale where I paid 13 cents a can.  What a steal and it has a looonng shelf life.

FYI: I pulled these simple white dishes out of my aunt's donate pile last weekend and I love them- thanks Aunt Barbara! I love white dishes- they are classic and timeless! The cute brass tray was a steal at $4 from a junk shop in China Spring, TX where I was visiting my sister! It is currently living on my coffee table covered in bridal magazines (:

If I forgot anything or you have any questions just ask in a comment!

Welcoming 2012 with open arms!

I have never blogged before (gasp), but figure now is as good a time as any to jump into the current century!  Here's a little back story to bring you up to date on us!  We were born and raised in the same Arkansas town.  When I was studying for my criminal justice degree in Denton, TX, Brad moved to the same town for a summer job in spring 2007.  That is when Brad and Sarah turned into Brad & Sarah.  After adopting two puppies we became Brad, Sarah, 4th and Lola.  His summer job turned into a few year job then we both finished our degrees and headed back for the hills of Arkansas in 2009!  Since then we have been learning how to live the grown-up life.  Last May Brad's proposal melted my heart so we are excitingly engaged! 

Shortly after the engagement we dove hands first into DIY home renovation, all while neglecting wedding planning-our bad.  Many people have told us that if we can make it through a home renovation, marriage will be a breeze.  I don't know about that, but we do love projects together.  It's nice that I'm getting to marry the handiest man I have ever met- he really can fix everything.  After much commuting, long distance romance and frequent moves, it is so lovely to have a place to call our own (even though I won't technically live there until post-wedding). 


The house isn't quite finished, but it's definitely livable.  Last summer I took "before" pictures of the house.  I will post those and current ones as soon as I find them.  I have been slowly decorating, and with my addiction to pinterest (follow me: lolita sarita) it's hard to resist!  I keep telling myself that I don't need to buy that, because I can just register for it in 9 short months. 


Oh my gosh...only 9 months until the wedding and so much to do.  Maybe I shouldn't be spending my spare time blogging with so much on my plate (I can just hear Brad saying that now), but what a great way to share our ideas!  And if some ideas don't turn out as good as they looked in our heads, at least you can learn from our mistakes.  The first time I made meatloaf for Brad and once marinating steaks for 3 days in meat tenderizer before grilling come to mind as a few of our past faux pas.  I guess it's true that all of us learn from our mistakes. 
Now that the new year has rolled around we have switched gears to planning our 10/20/12 nuptials!  We are planning a daytime wedding and intimate reception at my family's farm, and then having a big reception (don't know where yet) that night to celebrate with friends and family!  We are on a tight budget for the wedding, so it will be DIY to the max, which is perfect with us! 
For Christmas we bought Brad's grandmother the new Paula Deen Southern Cooking Bible, and ever since I have been hinting that I wanted one too. Two weeks ago Brad bought it for me with the condition that I cook one thing out of it a week...ha he does love home cooked food! So far I have made the roasted potatoes with rosemary and also made the fried chicken which was amazing by the way.  I'm sure I will be blogging about my future successes from Paula's newest edition!

In addition to recipes we'll also be serving up blogs documenting the DIY, home decor, renovation, tailgating, gardening, bargain hunting and maybe even a little couponing successes of two soon to be newlyweds!