Vegetable soup and dumplings (chicken and dumplings for the vegetarian)

I stopped in the store desperately searching for something to serve for dinner. I wanted something seasonal and something that feels like fall. Although the sky is blue and sunny, there is a fall chill in the air that makes me seek warm and comforting food. In the organic section were these beautiful carrots in a rainbow of colors with rich green tops. That was it! I was going to cook with those carrots tonight! I decided on vegetable soup with dumplings.

Making soup in only a few hours is hard because it doesn’t typically build the depth of flavor that I would like. Making vegetarian soup is even harder because meat adds a lot of flavor to soups. Here are a few tricks I've come up with to help solve this problem.

1)      Brown your butter
2)      Add nutritional yeast
3)      Add booze
4)      Add condensed soup

All of these things develop flavor in the soup that otherwise you wouldn't get to experience. Nutritional yeast is exceptionally helpful with "chicken" dishes because it adds a chickeniness that otherwise you'll be missing.

Soup Stock:

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 white onion

2 organic carrots

2 stalks celery

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (or chicken free chicken stock)

1 tablespoon poultry seasoning

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

8oz hard cider (4 for the soup, 4 for the chef)

8oz cream of mushroom soup

1 cup frozen peas

In a large dutch oven melt butter on low until pan is preheated and butter is golden brown. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook until they are slightly soft and browned. Add 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock, poultry seasoning, nutritional yeast and hard cider. Allow to cook until vegetables are tender and alcohol is cooked out.

 

(this is a really good time to enjoy that cider!)

Add cream of mushroom soup, and frozen peas and allow to reach a boil again.
 

While soup is cooking prepare dumpling dough. In Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything he says "You can make dumplings with almost anything even flour and water. But I strongly believe they out to taste like something." I took that to heart when making dumplings adding soup stock and an extra punch of flavor with cream of mushroom soup.

When it comes to cream of mushroom soup I'm also pretty brand loyal to Pacific Natural Foods Organic Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. This soup is so good that I will eat it on its own! If a condensed soup is so bad you can't eat it straight why put it into food?

 

Dumplings:

4 tablespoons softened butter

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon cream of mushroom soup concentrate

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Stock  (about 3 tablespoons)

Cream softened butter, add eggs and cream of mushroom soup until just combined.

Sift together flour, baking powder and poultry seasoning. Add gradually to egg mixture. Add stock from soup one tablespoon at a time until dough looks like a thick pancake batter.

Add to boiling soup stock by dropping with a spoon and allow to cook covered for about 10 minutes. Flip dumplings and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes until dough is cooked through.

 

There you have it! A house that smells like fall, and a warm tummy from your apple cider consumption. :)