Chicken and Dumplings

I know I have been super MIA lately, but buying a house has had it's share of projects. I have a list about a mile long of things I would like to do to the house so that its more "our style". I was blessed to have enough furniture to fill the rooms from my grandma, but floral grandma and brown 1970s-ish chairs are really not the look we're going for. So I made curtains for the living and family rooms, I am in the process of making a slipcover for the floral sofa, and then I should really get going on re-upholstering the brown chairs and PAINTING! I really would love to get paint on the walls so I can start hanging pictures and decor :) It's a slow process, but I know we'll get there. We also need to squeeze in some kind of "open-house" house-warming so everyone can finally see the house!

We have been opening our home to others already, but on a smaller-scale basis. In fact, we recently had friends over where I got to make my chicken and dumplings! I really love chicken and dumplings and by far my favorite part is the dumpling. I make mine in the slow-cooker so I can forget about it. I love my crock pot, easy to use and it makes meal planning easy. I also used by bread machine to make dinner roll dough that I added to my crock-pot about 2 hours before serving, so that the rolls would cook in the soup's liquid. An easy substitution would be to use store-bought dinner roll dough. This particular night I was feeling festive and as it was the 2nd official day of Fall it felt appropriate to also serve a Harvest Salad with a raspberry vinaigrette. Also delicious!

Chicken and Dumplings
INGREDIENTS
1.5-2 lbs boneless chicken breast halves
2 tbsp butter
2 (10.75 oz) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
1 yellow onion
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp parsely
1/2 tbsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp seasoned salt
pepper to taste
1-2 cups chicken broth (enough to cover the chicken once in the crock pot)
2 pkgs refrigerated biscuit dough, torn into pieces OR dough*

*dough
3 c bread flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 c warm milk
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 1/4 tsp yeast

DIRECTIONS
1. Place the chicken, butter, soup, onion, and spices in slow cooker, and fill with enough chicken broth to cover chicken breast. Cover, and cook for 5-6 hours on High.
2. *optional skip this step if using store bought biscuit dough* Place milk, butter, flour, sugar, salt, and yeast (wet ingredients are always first and yeast is always last!) into bread machine. Set on dough cycle and start. Remove risen dough from machine at end of cycle, deflate, and turn out onto a floured surface. Divide dough into equal pieces and form into rounds. Place the round on a cookie sheet and cover with cloth until they double in volume (40 mins or so).
3. About 1.5-2 hours before serving, place biscuit dough in slow cooker. Dough should be cooked through-out by serving time.