Chicken Dumpling Soup

I made this for the church on Sunday night; it was really good. It's not as thick as most Chicken & Dumplings, which is what I really dislike about that dish. Try this one.

2 to 3 Tbsp. cooking oil
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1/2 stalk celery, diced
Meat from 1 chicken, cooked and shredded
4 to 6 cups chicken broth
1 cup green beans
2 teaspoons celery seed
2 teaspoons basil
1 Tbsp. parsley
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Dumplings:
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup flour
3 eggs

Soup:
In a small amount of cooking oil, sweat the onion, carrots and celery. Add chicken, broth, green beans, celery seed, parsley and bay leaves. Simmer about 30 minutes.

Make dumplings:
Bring the milk and butter to a boil, add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Remove from heat and immediately add flour, stirring until the dough leaves the sides of the pan. The batter should be slightly thinner than play-do at this point. Incorporate the eggs, one at a time, forming a sticky dough.

Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper. Add spoon sized (I used small kitchen spoons) balls of dumpling dough and simmer until dumplings float. This just takes a few minutes.

All in all, you can cook this soup, start to finish, in about an hour. It's really, really good!