Chicken And Dumplings

My sister would laugh if she saw this post because she would know what I was going to say. Chicken and dumplings was what she fixed every time my brother came home to visit. He ate until he about exploded. Her dumplings were extra special. They were light and fluffy and had just the right amount of chicken broth to make the dumplings soft on the outside and yet the inside was fluffy.
There was seldom any competition between Rosie and I because of the age difference, but I considered myself a good cook and would like to make chicken and dumplings that were as good as hers. I used Bisquick and followed the directions on the box. They were good, but not fantastic. One day when I was visiting Rosie, the subject of Keith and his love for her chicken and dumplings came up. I said, “Well, I would like to have your recipe for them.” She just shrugged and said, “It’s easy, just an egg for every cup of flour.” What is that? That’s no recipe, but that’s as far as it went.
As the years went by, I experimented on chicken and dumpling recipes. The dumplings came out hard as rocks, hard on the inside and hard on the outside. When this happened, I called them German dumplings. Hey, whatever works, right? Or they came out so soft they made a gravy and the dumplings could not be seen. One day I got a cookbook from the Amish. The secret my friends, is not to lift the lid until the recipe tells you to. Well, what I want to know is how can you tell if the dumplings are done if you can’t see them. The saga continued until I bought a Dutch oven with a glass lid. I now can keep an eye on my dumplings without removing the lid. They do not taste like my sister’s however. And you know what, that’s ok.