Place chicken in a 12 quart sauce pot and add enough water to completely cover the chicken.  Boil until chicken can be pulled from the bones discarding  the skin, bones and fat from chicken.  Cut or pull into smaller pieces and set aside.  Let the stock cool down until the fat coagulates and skim most of the fat off the stock.  Bring stock (at least one gallon or more) back to a rolling boil and add 1 teaspoon of salt, chicken bouillon cubes, stick of real butter, cream of chicken soup and small pieces of the frozen dumplings; a few at a time and cook until the dumplings began to swell up.  Add the chicken, pepper and additional salt to taste and allow the chicken to get thoroughly heated through.  If you need to add more liquid to the pot, use canned or home made chicken broth.  Be sure to stir the dumplings frequently to keep them from sticking to the pot.

Note: Grandma Coley's dumplings were made by mixing plain flour and ice water and rolling the dough to about 1/8-inch thick and cutting into 1-inch width strips several inches in length.  However, the Anne's frozen dumplings are about as good as those made from "scratch".  Joyce got some on the job training from Grandma with this "ole time" chicken and dumplings recipe.  I can still see Grandma rolling the dough out with the large wooden maple rolling pin and using the boat shaped wooden biscuit dough mixing bowl.

Mickey Porter 02-13-99

Above pot of chicken and dumplings made March, 2007.  The next time we do them, I will add several sequence pixs.  Folks in the eastern part of North Carolina call this recipe chicken and pastry, whereas their dumplings are much larger and thicker!