Chicken with Dumplings

For me, this is the ultimate winter comfort food. Whether it's simply cold outside or there's a cold in my head, who cares when you can eat this? Funny, though, I don't remember eating it much when I was a kid. Though I do remember the inevitable "bisquick" biscuits, I don't remember using it for dumplings until I was a mom myself. Today, I've reincarnated what I would have wanted when I was a kid and it was cold outside, and what the adult me wants now that it's cold outside!

Ingredients:

for the stew:

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 carrots, quartered lengthwise and sliced
1 stalk celery, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1/2 cup red or orange pepper, diced
1/2 cup sliced and diced mushrooms
1 cup frozen green peas
2 cups diced cooked chicken (rotisserie chicken works well here)
4 cups low sodium chicken stock
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano

for the dumplings:

1 cup bisquick baking mix (I used gluten free bisquick)
1 Tbs butter, cut into small pieces
2 Tbs olive oil
1/3 cup milk or almond milk
1 whole egg and 1 egg white

Directions:

Heat an enameled cast iron cook pot, or a soup pot, over medium heat. Add the olive oil, onion, and garlic and cook about 2 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, peppers and mushrooms, and cook another 2 minutes. Add the green peas, chicken, chicken stock, and spices and cook until the broth comes to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low. Make the dumpling dough while the stew is coming to a simmer by mixing the butter and olive oil into the bisquick and stirring until there are small pea size lumps. Add the milk and eggs and stir until combined. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough on top of the simmering stew. The mix should make about 8 dumplings. Cook, covered, for about 7 minutes. Uncover, and continue cooking for another 8 minutes. Serve.

Serves 4

Stealthy Cooking Tip: There's about equal parts vegetables and chicken in this recipe, but it tastes so wonderful that many won't notice how many vegetables are here. If you like, you can even increase the amounts of vegetables by another two to three cups, then add an additional cup of chicken stock, which will increase the number of servings to 6.