So this recipe was one that I was sort of curious about but skeptical at the same time. I’ve never made a Sandra Lee recipe, so I wanted to see how good her stuff is. Also, I’ve never had chicken and dumplings. And this uses a lot of store-bought stuff… which is Sandra Lee’s shtick… semi-homemade. But, I threw caution to the wind and gave it a shot. Man was I glad I did!
This picture doesn’t really do this meal justice. I mean, it was really simple… a lot like a chicken noodle soup, but with dumplings (refrigerated biscuit dough) instead of noodles. But it was so so good. I expected the dumplings to be lumps of uncooked dough, but they turned out to be moist nuggets of deliciousness. I don’t even know how to describe them except awesome.
Now, there are a couple minor things I would change for next time. The main thing is the veggie preparation. Sandra Lee likes to use the pre-chopped/cut veggies and if you’re in a hurry, I guess the frozen chopped onions would be fine to use. BUT, the recipe says to buy carrot sticks and celery sticks to save time. Maybe this would be ok if they were dumped into the soup that way, but no. You have to chop them up. And chopping longer pieces of veggies is way easier than trying to corral a bunch of small sticks. What I’m saying is, buying the precut veggies doesn’t save much time and is a lot more expensive. Just suck it up and cut them yourself. It doesn’t take THAT long.
Also, this recipe calls for store-bought gravy. It’s basically used as a little extra flavoring and slight thickener for the soup. I bet a packet (or partial packet) of dry gravy mix would serve the same purpose. Or you could just add your own salt and pepper and thicken it a little with some cornstarch mixed with chicken broth. Anyway, just my two cents. The gravy in a jar was just fine, those were just some options for those of you on a budget.
Looks like the perfect comfort food.