Check me out, all competently keeping myself fed

[multipurposegoddess]

When I got the stewing chickens, I had making chicken and dumplings i the back of my mind. It seems like every recipe I see for that includes some reference to what you have to do to make supermarket chickens taste like grandma's stewing hens. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't use those recipes, but I have a 1953 edition of Joy of Cooking that mentions whether you want broilers, fryers, or stew chickens in the poultry section, so I started with their Chicken Stew (which they mention you can serve with dumplings) and adapted Cook's Illustrated Classic Chicken and Herbed Dumplings with Aromatic Vegetables and I am quite pleased with the results! Good thing, because now I have three servings in the fridge and two more in the freezer. I think next time I will cook the chicken and make the stock in the crockpot rather than using the dutch oven all the way through - even after 3 hours, the chicken was not really tender, I'm betting the slowcooker will help with that. I can also use the non-dumpling part as pot pie filling very easily - I think dumplings store as leftovers better, but I do like a nice single-serving pot pie.

Between those leftovers, the pot roast I made for lunch, and tomorrow night's traditional pizza, I'm set for meals through at least Tuesday. Wednesday my Farm Fresh box is due, so I need to plan any further meals around that.