U-Pick: A Recipe*

Chicken Soup with Noodles...Dumplings...Noodles...okay, FINE! Dumplings

Tiffany and I made this recipe Wednesday night. You will need:

-1 sick girlfriend (Tiffany) who wanted chicken soup with dumplings because she'd never had dumplings

-1 thoughtful girlfriend (me) who wanted chicken soup with noodles because I was nervous about the dumplings, having only made them once for chicken-and-dumplings

-1 onion

-a few breasts or thighs of boneless skinless chicken, uncooked

-a parsnip (which you may be surprised to find looks exactly like a white carrot; in fact, after inquiring after the parsnip at the farmer's market, I realized Tiffany and I had been buying parsnips and thinking they were a special white carrot for some time)

-celery

-actual carrots

-chard (If you've never had chicken soup with chard, you're not alone--but some health-conscious sick people prefer to go with greens where no greens have gone just to have greens. Appease them. You love them.)

-chicken stock

Thoughtful girlfriend: Consult three recipes and try to please all of them.

Sick girlfriend: Briefly consult one of the recipes and dismiss it as mildly helpful but not important. Remind thoughtful girlfriend of this fact more than once.

Slice some of the carrot, some of the parsnip, some of the celery and some of the onion and throw it in a pot with chicken stock, water and the raw chicken. Bring it to a boil and simmer 40 minutes. Discard the now-mushy veggies, take out the chicken, shred it and throw it back into the broth (try not to splash thoughtful girlfriend).

Slice up new slices of the carrot, parsnip, celery and onion and add it to the broth and chicken.

For the Dumplings:

flour

baking powder

salt

butter

egg

milk

Thoughtful girlfriend: worry about when to make the dumplings the entire time the chicken is cooking in the stock. Start making them too early because you've worried yourself into a state and don't know what else to do. Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk the egg and milk together. Ignore sick girlfriend's criticism of your whisking technique. It is fine. Send sick girlfriend to the shower. Add the egg and milk to the dry ingredients. Smush it all together with your hands. Realize all of a sudden that you should have put flour on your hands. Panic. Wish you had not sent sick girlfriend to shower. Turn on faucet with elbows, wash hands thoroughly. Start over smushing. Knead. Roll out. Realize you have indeed made your dumpling dough way too early, just as you thought you would, and now it will likely dry out. Ponder this fact about yourself for precisely one minute. Have a brilliant idea--act on it: cover the rolled-out dough with a damp cool paper towel (you are a GENIUS!) Kindly wait for sick girlfriend to get out of the shower to cut the dough into piece-of-gum-sized strips even though it's your favorite part. Don't be offended when sick girlfriend also wants to make some ugly dumpling balls. Let her. She's sick, after all. Plus, you love her.

Bring your broth with chicken and vegetables to a boil, throw in the dumpling shapes one-by-one. Realize you've underestimated how puffy they get and overestimated how many dumplings to make. Decide to throw all the dumplings in anyway--who doesn't love dumplings? Add your controversial chard. Simmer (not you--the soup) 20 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

*This post brought to you on a suggestion by Gladys, 1/2 of the world's greatest neighbor-couple, who, despite reading some of my other posts about foods (here, here and here, for starters and you can check out the handy "food" label on the sidebar for more), suggested I blog a recipe. To find out how you can suggest a post topic, click here.