Chicken Soup Spiced Up

This is seriously the most satisfying chicken soup I've ever had!  The cooked hot sausage adds enough heat to give it that extra zip.

Since this soup is spiced up from a regular chicken soup, here's "Pick Yourself Up" sung by Ella Fitzgerald.

CHICKEN SOUP SPICED UP

7 medium potatoes

5 cups water

5 chicken bouillon cubes

½ cup carrots, cut up

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

4 bay leaves

3 half chicken breasts

1 small onion

½ red pepper

5 ribs celery

¼ pound hot sausage

½ cup skim milk

1. Wash, cut up into bite-size pieces potatoes.  Place in large pan and pour water over them.
2. Break up bouillon cubes and sprinkle over potatoes and water.  Stir to dissolve bouillon.
3. Cut up carrots and put in pan with potatoes.  Turn burner on medium heat and bring potatoes, water, and carrots to a boil. 
4. Add pepper flakes, black pepper, and bay leaves.  Turn burner down and cook the vegetables until almost done.
5. Slice chicken breast into small pieces, fry in a hot frying pan and add to vegetable mixture. 
6. Dice onion, cut celery and add to vegetables.
7. Cook sausage, drain off grease and add to mixture.
8. Continue to simmer until all the vegetables are cooked.
9. Add skim milk.  Stir.  Simmer and allow soup to come to a boil.
10. Drop half-teaspoon size dumplings onto boiling soup.

DUMPLINGS

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Dash salt

1 ½ teaspoons parsley

½ teaspoon basil

2 tablespoons butter, cold

¼ cup + 1 tablespoon skim milk

1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, parsley, and basil in a small bowl.
2. cut butter into chunks and drop into flour mixture.  Blend quickly with fingers pressing butter into flour.
3. Add milk and stir with a fork.
4. Drop onto boiling soup mixture.
5. Simmer for 10 minutes, basting the soup over the dumplings to make sure they cook completely through.