Please Keep Trying!

It’s hard to keep trim in the winter; it’s too cold outside to be as active as we should be, and it’s too easy to munch down on heavy carbs and meats. Unfortunately, it’s also tempting to chow down on comfort foods, which are basically carbs, meats, or both. I used to love the traditional comfort foods my mom would serve up on an icy night. And what’s the ultimate winter comfort food to me? Easy: Chicken and dumplings.

Divine are the fluffy clouds of biscuit dough floating in a delectable broth of diced up bird. Yuumm. I don’t actually miss the chicken, though, and I surely don’t miss eating dumplings made from trans fat heavy Bisquick™. What I really miss is the flavor and the dumplings. You can recreate both without the chicken or the Bisquick™, yet still have all the down home goodness of this traditional American comfort food with this personal recipe:

Ingredients

For the Soup:

• 8 cups vegetarian or vegan “chicken” broth or 8 cups water mixed with 3 Tbs. powdered “chicken” broth
• 1 1/2 cups vegetarian or vegan “chicken” pieces (we use VegeUSA’s™* “duck”)
• 4 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 carrots, cut into rounds
• 1 large potato, with the skin left on and diced
• 1 Tbs. parsley
• 1 1/2 tsp. basil
• 1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. salt, (optional)

For the Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar (may be omitted)
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 3 Tbs. trans fat-free vegetable shortening**
• 1 Tbs. veggie-based butter (we use Smart-Balance Light™)
• 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream or soy sour cream
• 1/2 cup plain soy milk

Directions:

1. In a large pot add the broth, “chicken”, veggies, and seasonings, bring it all to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes on low heat.
2. Make dumplings by whisking together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and black pepper.
3. Cut shortening into dry ingredients until well blended.
4. Melt veggie butter in microwave and combine melted butter with soy milk and sour cream. (This makes a fantastic, guilt-free buttermilk substitute.) Add “buttermilk” to flour mixture, blending thoroughly.
5. Gently knead the dough in the bowl a few times.
6. Drop golf ball-sized pieces of dumpling dough into soup until the dough is gone. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer on low for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 Servings

This tasted sooooo good. It was much better than I remembered. David (my wonderful husband) and I were stuffed after one bowl, but we kinda sorta managed, against our better judgment, to put away another serving. Fake meat and loads of veggies make for one hearty meal!

*VegeUSA has an impressive line of dried, inexpensive fake “meats”. Thanks to Buddhism, meat alternatives such as mock “duck”, “beef” and “chicken” are sold cheaply at most Asian markets. I say this often and with all seriousness: “God bless Buddhism!”

**Crisco still isn’t good for healthy cooking. It now uses fully hydrogenated soy bean oil, which is just as god-awful as the partially hydrogenated crap. Don’t be fooled! I always check labels.

Difficulty: Very Easy | Time: 40 minutes | Ingredient Availability: Moderate