Chicken Fricassee With Fluffy Dumplings

It's cold out there friends and, for those of you suffering the early onslaught of wintry snow we've been hearing about, we have just the stew to warm your kitchen and your spirit - German-style chicken and dumplings! Mmmmm.

This is perfect for when you're homebound and want to fill your kitchen with all of the comfort and warmth that the outdoors lack, and is filled with staple ingredients so you might be able to pull it off without having to go to the store. It does take time though, and is especially fun with a cooking buddy.

We used boneless, skinless (humanely-raised!) chicken breasts and thighs and they were so fork-tender by the time this was done that they just kind of fell apart. We also used cipolline onions again since we all loved them so much in the Breasts of Chicken Paprika. Any chicken and onions you have on hand should do the trick though. And just look at our beautiful veggies! What veggies are cuter than carrots with their tops on? (Sorry celery and cipollines, you're cute too!) Seriously, if you come up with one let us know below. :)

Now here's a handy thing to know after struggling to take the skins off of pearl onions fairly unsuccessfully for the entirety of our lives, and generally avoiding them because of this fact. We didn't notice the first time we used the cipollines, but there are instructions right on the package! And this can work for ANY pearl onions. Just blanch them whole in boiling water for 3 minutes, run them under cold water to stop the cooking (and save your fingers), cut off the root end, and the onion will just pop right out of its skin. Here's a life hack that really does work, tried by yours truly here at Ms. Schnitzel. Avoid these sweet delicious little onions no longer!

We had a lot of fun this particular Saturday evening, multitasking the Chicken Fricassee with the Chilled Raspberry Pudding....

All while enjoying some delicious German beer!

 do what you gotta do when you have sticky dumpling fingers

But let's face it, we are all about fun in the Haus von Schnitzel.

However, we also take our food seriously and were rather shocked at Grandma's Cookbook for suggesting biscuit mix. Not to criticize this gem of a cookbook, which has not let us down yet. Not even close. But we chose to make our dumplings from scratch using this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dumplings/

The only adjustments we made were to use Earth Balance, hemp milk and pure cane sugar, 1 to 1 ratios. These dumplings were tender, delicious, and everything we hoped they would be. And since Tara is lactose intolerant, this was a perfect way to make a creamy, delicious and satisfying meal dairy free!

Other than the aforementioned adjustments and the substitution of an entire sprig of fresh rosemary for dried, we followed the recipe pretty closely and it turned out simply mah-velous. Remember, it is very important when adding your flour/water mixture to the boiling liquid to really stir constantly, otherwise you risk clumpage. Not that clumpage is the end of the world or anything.

That's it y'all, get cooking! We promise you won't be disappointed. And stay warm out there!