Chicken and Dumplings a la Slow Cooker

Although I generally consider chicken & dumplings to be a cold weather dish, I made it this week as we have had some extremely rainy & stormy days!  It smells heavenly as it cooks and is easy as pie and oh so yummy in your tummy.  It's a one pot meal so your work is done ahead of time.  All you have to do is serve it with a side salad and perhaps a peach cobbler for dessert.

Ingredients:

4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts

   (or I have used 1 Rotisserie chicken, deboned and shredded to save time)*

1 sweet onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, diced

1 cup matchstick carrots

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 cans chicken broth

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence

Salt & pepper to taste

1 can refrigerated biscuit dough (I used Grands Flaky Layers)

Instructions:

1. Turn the slow cooker on low and add the cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, chopped onion, celery, carrots, and chicken breasts. Make sure the chicken is covered with liquid.
2. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. *If using rotisserie chicken, cooking for 4 hours on low will do the trick.
3. About an hour before serving, crank the slow cooker up to high and shred your chicken. (I like mine shredded so that the pieces are small).  Tear the raw biscuits into small pieces and place on the chicken mixture in the slow cooker.  Cook on high about 2 hours until dough is cooked through. 
4. Ladle into bowls and voila… dinner is served!

Note that the onion, celery, and carrots are purely optional.  You can omit them and have a more traditional chicken stew.  Sometimes I add a bag of frozen mixed vegetables to get more of a “pot pie” dish.  It’s all very yummy!  I’ve also used Anne’s frozen flat dumplings rather than refrigerated biscuits and that works well too, giving  you a "chicken and pastry" dish.   The jury is still out on which version I enjoy the most!