What's For Dinner? Chicken and Dumplings with Cornbread Dressing

These cooler days have me in the mood for some "holiday" cooking, so I decided to go ahead and make chicken and dumplings with cornbread dressing last night.  I figured it would be over a month before we had it again at Thanksgiving so we wouldn't burn out on it now.  Since I knew I had to take my son to the church for a meeting right after school, I needed something I could put together ahead of time and throw in the oven when we got home so that it would be ready when my husband got home from work.  Both of these worked well.  I put them both in glass dishes and put them into the refrigerator.  (When doing this, be sure to allow the glass to warm to room temperature before putting them into a hot oven or on a hot stove.  I turned the eye on the lowest setting to warm the glass.)

To make the cornbread dressing, this is the recipe I used:

Cornbread Dressing

Basic Cornbread
3 cups cornmeal (I used a mixture of white (what I had left) and yellow that had been ground from popcorn)
2 Tbs baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup milk (made from reconstituted powdered milk)
1 egg

Mix all ingredients at bake at 325 degrees until done and browned on top.

Dressing
Basic Cornbread, crumbled
1 12.5 oz can of chunk chicken breast (I normally would have used my own canned chicken or freshly boiled, but had this that needed to be used)
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp sage
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
2 eggs
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
10 3/4 ounces water (same as soup can)
1 cup chicken broth (I used a chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water)


Mix all ingredients together and put into a casserole dish.  Put a few pats of butter on top if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.

Chicken and Dumplings
1 lb chicken, boiled until fork tender
1 can cream of chicken soup
3 cups chicken broth (I used the water from boiling the chicken)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
8 - 10 small flour tortillas

Cut tortillas into desired size - approx. 1 to 2 inch squares.  Combined chicken, soups and broth.  Once bubbling, add tortillas one piece at a time using a spoon to gently push them down into the broth. Reduce heat and simmer until the dumplings are all softened.

This is the first time that I have used the flour tortillas as dumplings, but they turned out fantastic.  My mother has been trying to get me to try them for some time.  I should have listened earlier.