I make a killer pot of chicken and dumplings the kids eat up about 3 gallons every time I make it .

 

Recipe and instructions or it didn't happen.

 

We have them fairly often C&D is good stuff

 

We had them in our menu rotation when we were growing up. We called it just food, not poor people food and I have a sister-in-law who would beg to take some home. She loved my Mom’s cooking, but the dumplings were her favorite!

 

Never considered it poor people food either. Both my parents came from Christian farming backgrounds with modest incomes that were touched by the Great Depression. It was just instinct to live simple, humble lifestyles. The menus reflected that I guess. My in laws also come from this background, and I see its influence on my wife's meal planning. I just acquired a second chest freezer as I plan to buy a 1/4 cow or a pig. But the thought occurs to me that we really don't eat all that much meat. If I have a steak 4 times a year, that's a lot. Can't remember the last time we made a roast. Have never grilled ribs either. Not that we couldn't indulge more, but meat just never grew into a large portion of our diet I guess. This thread makes me hungry for chicken and dumplings. Haven't made that in a while either.

 

At my grandma's house, it tended to be chicken and spaetzle, which is what happens when you marry someone of half Dutch and half German ancestry, but the same general idea was at work.

I particularly recommend the chicken paprikash and spaetzle version I picked up from a Hungarian significant other in my own life a decade or so later.

 

My brother says poor people live longer because of the diet - they can afford highly processed junk food, tons of red meat, sea foods....

From Rooster Cogburn Careful with that chicken and dumpling - it will hut your eyes. How is that? You will strain your eyes looking for the chicken.

 

From Rooster Cogburn Careful with that chicken and dumpling - it will hut your eyes. How is that? You will strain your eyes looking for the chicken.

I believe there was a previous discussion here about the disappearing chicken in commercial canned chicken and dumplings. Not a problem with the homemade version, at least not yet.

 

never ever had dumplings hmm... no clue what they taste like but we have plenty "cheap" food dishes to make over here

 

I’d guess they’re like raspeball or kompe? Except, no potato involved. Do you know American biscuits? Not like English biscuits. But dumplings essentially are small boiled biscuits. Boiled bread chunks, cooked in the gravy of a stew after the meat and veggies are done. Some are light and fluffy inside, some are dense and chewy, it depends on the cook. They are covered in the gravy and you eat them with the stewed meat and vegetables.

 

I had flat dumplings not raised or biscuit type dumpling when growing up and I still prefer that type. When I'm feeling lazy I open a can of Sweet Sue brand chicken and dumplings, it's flat dumplings with very good gravy and plenty of chicken. Reminds me of mom's homemade.

 

Thanks, I had forgotten about Sweet Sue but have added it to my grocery list.

I used to pick up a rotisserie chicken and make a couple of meals of the leg quarters and wings then chicken salad with the breast. I may add chicken and dumplings to the mix.

 

Almost all peoples of the world have a similar dish - Knödel, galooshki, gnocchi, germknodl etc

 

My first wife was German. Knoedeln is simply a round dumpling.

 

Its kind of confusing because dumplings can be from light fluffy steamed bread like to more like flat noodles.
One variant I really like though only had a few times is matzah balls in chicken soup.
Not a poor persons dish but stretched is prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. Prime rib is on sale this time of year, low as $5.77 locally.
Ham now on sale under $1.

 

Its kind of confusing because dumplings can be from light fluffy steamed bread like to more like flat noodles.
One variant I really like though only had a few times is matzah balls in chicken soup.
Not a poor persons dish but stretched is prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. Prime rib is on sale this time of year, low as $5.77 locally.
Ham now on sale under $1.

Yep I saw picnics for $0.89 yesterday. Easter pricing probably. If the price stays low like it did after Thanksgiving I'll get several. Use them for pot pies, sandwiches or just slice and fry or eat. Still got 2 from last TG.

 

One of my favorite quick meals, is a can of Chicken Soup with a can of biscuits, the kind in the tube that you keep in the fridge. Add a little extra water top the soup than normal and then tear the biscuits in quarters and drop them in. As it heats, the biscuits quarters will start to swell. I like to make it simmer so the soup kind of boils up and over the dumplings. It tastes pretty good and is cheap and easy to make.

 

Chicken and dumplings is a southern staple, and grandmas far and wide guard their passed down recipes!

 

I have my grandmother's recipe.

 

My grandmother used to make rabbit and dumplings. She would take something similar to biscuit dough, wrapp it in cheese cloth and boil it until it firmed up. Then she would remove the dumpling from the water, cut it up into round flat disc's. And then put them in the pot with the rabbit stew. It was a great way to stretch out a meal.

Back then we did have much for money so we also enjoyed things like raccoon and potato stew, or opossum biscuits and gravy. We made due and learned not to be fussy.

 

My grandmother used to make rabbit and dumplings. She would take something similar to biscuit dough, wrapp it in cheese cloth and boil it until it firmed up.

The recipe is similar to Czech cheese knedliks

 

My mother made rolls from such dough with herbs from the garden and cooked in broth.

 

I used to work with a first generation Canadian whose family was from Ukraine. She made some kind of potato biscuit cooked in sauce like that. I forget what she called them.

 

Wait ...what??? I was raised poor???

 

I make chicken and dumplings every time I roast a chicken. There's only two of us so I get several meals out of one chicken by using the carcass to make stock and there's plenty of leftover meat - a roast chicken dinner, C&D, chicken soup.

 

Ill have to post some of the local cuisine...

Nopales with corn and wild wheat grass. Piñon and various wild flowers...

 

Nopales with corn and wild wheat grass.

Exotic cuisine

 

The chinese make steamed dumplings with veggies and (preferably) meat inside, and dip them in spicy soy sauce.

Working class people of many nations not only make dumplings, they make them wonderful

 

I have to say , food from China/ Japan is rough
my daughter brought me a bag of diffrent snacks and drinks .
The sakis is real good and stronger then we get here
but the snacks are not really even edible , some little goodies taste like fish food .
Others have no flavor at all .
I had a pound cake and it was like a old sponge , my kids won’t even eat it .
I think they are Already eating survival food

 

I learned to make C&Ds from my grandmother and have been making them for 60 years. Never thought of them as poor persons food, people beg me to make them. I have made them for up to 100 people
p.s. The flat unleavened kind are the only kind for me.

 

Dumplings aren't so much poor people's food as a traditional way to make the flour tasty with just an open fire to cook over and little time (or fuel) to prepare dinner. As such, good dumpling recipes should be in every prepper's cookbook.

 

Dumplings aren't so much poor people's food

In Russia, meat pelmeni are the food of students and bachelors. You can buy by weight and cook quickly.

 

A further note on Czech fruit dumplings with recipes for dumplings in yeast and cheese doughs. (And now you know why you stored those cans of Mountain House cottage cheese. )

Fruit Dumplings – Ovocné knedlíky
Plain Cheese Dumplings with Fruit Sauce
(Perfectly adaptable version for using canned and freeze-dried fruit)

 

I think I gained 40 lbs just looking through this thread

 

 

 

A meal doesn't get much more 'Poor People' friendly than the cornmeal/flour dumplings I poached and ate here a few months ago: Using preps - buttermilk pancake mix