Jen - I know! I normally go to a nearby cafe (and I wish I had their recipe to give you because it's great) when I need a fix but recently I tried the recipe in the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook. I found the soup part fussy but the dumplings were very good and very simple to make.

boy, that's a lot more complicated than what I do. Chicken and dumplings is my wife's favourite meal and every year I make it for her on her birthday, with a tarte tatin. I use a much wetter dumpling dough and spoon it into the fricassee on top of the chicken (and celery and carrots) and then cover and steam/braise them. Strain the broth? nah...

Spoonbread provides a good basic recipe:
http://www.amazon.com/Spoonbread-Strawberry-Wine-Recipes-Reminiscences/dp/0385472706

I'm writing you from Thomasville in south Georgia tonight! I just asked my local friends here about your question and we all had southern grandmothers (Georgia, Alabama, Alabama, Mississippi) who used to roll out their dumplings, cut them into strips and pinch them into pieces for their Chicken & Dumplings. None of us recall them drying the dumplings before cooking them, though. Otherwise, Alton Brown's recipe is very similar to what all our southern grandmother's used to make. Absolutely delicious!

This is a recipe from Alton Brown. He is not a native southerner, but he lives in Atlanta and I trust him with all things related to food:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chicken-and-rolled-dumplings-recipe/index.html

The PA Dutch have a way with dumpling-noodles, too:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art6854.asp