Soy Chicken/Vegetable Dumplings Soup

On mornings like this, I can't help but to wake up wondering, "Why can't adults get snow days off of work?"

There's four inches of snow on the ground, and I've got to be at work in less than two hours for a marvelous twelve hour bartending shift. All I want is to stay inside, snuggle in my pajamas with the dogs and Ty, and over-divulge in brownies, silently hoping all those calories won't resurface before New Year's Eve likely tight dress.

A long double shift with no break looms over my head, and I know, as I always do on such mornings, that I'm not going to cook today. I'll enjoy some leftovers, frozen soy products, or, at worst, canned soup. But, ahh, soup. Soup doesn't actually sound that bad. Soup actually sounds...delicious.

There are many people, I'm discovering, who aren't "soup" people. I don't know why, or how, one would not be a "soup" person, as it seems like such a basic part of a meal to me. I, on the other hand, love soup. My mother gave me the Cook's Library Vegetarian Cookbook, which contains dozen of vegetarian and vegan soup recipes and has allowed me to master the fine art of vegetarian soup concoctions, cream cheese and herb soup being my favorite. Trust me, you'll be hearing about this book quite a bit in this blog.

But today's soup recipe actually comes from Betty Crocker's "Quick and Healthy" mini-cookbook. I think this came free with some aerobics merchandise, but it actually ended up being more valuable than the workout gear. When I saw a recipe for chicken-vegetable soup with dumplings, I couldn't resist attempting it, although I used two cups of cut-up Morning Star Meal Starters soy chicken and four cups of a homemade vegetable bullion instead of chicken broth. Betty Crocker has this soup and dumplings recipe on their website. This was the first time I'd ever made dumplings, and I couldn't believe how simple they were to make. I offered this to two meat-eaters, Ty and his best friend, Chris; Ty turned it down, being one of those mysterious non-soup-eating members of society, and Chris actually ate it, and once getting over the fact that he was eating soy chicken, said it was pretty tasty. Personally, I thought it was a little too watery; next time I'd make it with maybe two cups of bullion.

So, as I look outside at the snow this morning before work, sipping my generic brand canned potato soup, I remember that hearty, homemade soy chicken and dumplings vegetable soup and sigh wistfully. Oh, to have a snow day off work...