My Tenth recipe - Chicken and Dumplings -100 Meals You Never Thought You Would Eat Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer patients

My Tenth recipe for the new cookbook - Chicken and Dumplings

This recipe is dedicated to Rosie, a caregiver, I met on-line that is at her wits end to get her father to eat.  I told her what I was doing, and asked her what his favorite recipes are and she said "Thank you! He's a steak-and-potato and chicken and dumpling guy."

My Tenth recipe - Chicken and Dumplings -100 Meals You Never Thought You Would Eat Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer patients

IMPORTANCE OF CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS

Normally, I would lump Chicken and Dumplings in the soup category and say "It's not really a meal." and be done with it.  But Chicken and Dumplings is more than a meal.   It is one of the most important foods that refreshes the soul.

I grew up in a Coast Guard Family with seven brothers and sisters.  This couldn't be done today.  My mom had to make one dinner that everyone loved - or they were allowed to not eat for the night.  Well, not really, but everyone knew dinnertime was dinnertime.  My mom's recipe included Bisquick(TM) dumplings.  To this day, I love Bisquick(TM) Dumplings.  I pray for the day that Betty Crocker starts to sell organic Bisquick, so I can bring them back into my organic household.  My favorite memories are those days in the Fall, when the hard frost is on the ground but the snow hasn't fallen yet, and there I looked out the window at the bird feeder while dining on dumplings.

Fast forward to 2014.  Now most friends know, I grew up on D&D, and have enjoyed Live-Action Role-playing with a Group out of Massachusetts called Legends, and have staffed for almost 20 years.  Last Spring, I was afraid that my second cancer might end my LARPing career.  All the players knew this.

Now typically on a Saturday evening, there is a lull in the game, and the players gather around a fire and share a dinner that they cooked themselves.  I was dressed as the Governor of the town, when I was invited to join the villagers for dinner.  Now at this point in my radiation treatment, there was not much that I could eat.  I really needed to have little spice, and be a semi-solid food, with a large glass of water to help wash it down. "Governor, we have Chicken and Dumplings, care to join us?"  I almost cried.  Not only was the soup soft, but the dumpling were like mom-used-to-make.  There is something magical about the way the dumpling holds the warmth of love as it slides down the throat.   I'm just pleased that the players didn't ask the Governor for any special privileges, because I would have granted them in an instant.

ETHNIC VARIATIONS

Every ethnic group has a variation of stone soup.  Dump the vegetables: boil them in a slow cooker; and add a touch of seasoning.  With my daughter being a vegetarian, my wife's Matzo ball soup has gone chicken-less the last couple of years.  Which is quite alright, because she used to only make it with white meat, and I'm a dark meat kind of guy.  However, the Matzo balls are to die-for.  No wonder it is called Jewish penicillin.

SLOW COOKING

The most important part about chicken and dumpling is slow cooking.  Before I was married, I lived with my friend, Bill Kenerson, and I still remember the day he slow cooked a whole chicken for at least 4 hours.  The most important part about a good chicken soup, is the smell that fills the whole house.  When you walk through the front door that smell makes you an elementary student again.

CHICKEN BROTH

My sister-in-law, Dorothy, is a champion at making chicken broth.  I can only bow to her expertise.  Going through this past cancer treatment, she specifically made me a batch of chicken broth.  You know it is a great batch when the chicken fat has congealed in the top of the container.  It is SO IMPORTANT to cook the chicken - bone and all.  There is a magical ingredient that can only be found in chicken bones.

PUREE ISSUES

Yea, there is not much to pureeing chicken and dumplings.  However, there are two main issues in pureeing this soup.

The biggest issue is making sure the soup isn't too hot.  Unlike most soups, everyone wants to take a bigger bite of this soup.  So, blowing on the soup, doesn't really cool off spoon full of soup.  I really recommend not using a spoon for this meal.

Secondarily, white meat does not puree well.  There always seems to be some chalky bits of chicken and get stuck in the throat or in the teeth.  If you are not going to boil us a whole bird, I recommend using thigh meat with the skin still attached.  The skin and bone are very easy to remove after cooking, and before pureeing.

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