If you're making homemade broth, simmer a whole chicken in water until the meat is fully cooked in your large stock pot. This should take at least an hour.
Take the chicken out of the pot and take all the meat off the bones. Set the meat aside to use later.
Add the chicken bones back to the stock pot and simmer. This can simmer all day, even up to 24 hours. Let it cook down into a rich broth.
Take out all the chicken bones using tongs.
Put the broth back on to simmer and increase the temperature to medium high heat.
While the broth is heating up, make the homemade dumplings. It should take less than 15 minutes to make the dumplings from scratch.
Take out your food processor or a large bowl.
Add 2 cups of flour into the bowl or food processor.
Cut in the cold butter or use the pulse function on the food processor.
Mix in the herbs, like thyme, rosemary, and black pepper.
Add the milk. Mix it in slowly to form a dough and ensure the milk is evenly dispersed. Mix the dough into a nice ball that is sticky and stretchy. If it is too thin, add more flour a little at a time until it is the correct consistency.
Check to see that your broth is at a full simmer.
Mash a piece of dough into a thick, flat strip using your fingers and drop it right into the broth. It will sink at first, but once it is cooked, it will float to the top.
Continue to form thick, flat dumplings and drop each piece into the stock pot of broth until you have used up all of the dough.
Stir your dumplings. If you want to make your chicken and dumplings thicker, just repeat the steps to make more dumpling dough and add more dumplings to the broth until you have the desired thickness.
Once you have the desired amount of dumplings and they are all floating to the top, add in the cooked chicken that you had set aside.
After it is salted and peppered to taste, serve and enjoy!