Happy morning

What an absolutely cheerful morning.

When I got home from my morning run I checked my refrigerator to plan the meals for the day and found the contents to be less than appealing. Either frozen Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine or canned soup. Hmmm neither of those sounded great and I didn't have any fruit at all (an absolute necessity). So I decided a trip to the grocery store was in my morning plans... but then I remembered it's Farmers Market Day! Is there anything better than a farmers market?

While I wandered around the booths of tomatoes, potatoes, jams and flowers I decided vegetable soup sounded wonderful. It got me thinking about the chicken dumpling soup my mom used to make when I was a kid. It had these great dumplings and I thought they were the best part of the soup. When I would go back for a second helping I would always skip the soup and just steal a couple more dumplings. I had to be sneaky about it because my Dad would always say that's cheating (like only picking the M&Ms out of the trail mix). I picked up the rest of the ingredients I needed and a gorgeous bunch of organic flowers to make my kitchen pretty while I cook. Since I have been avoiding white flour I couldn't make dumplings... or could I?

I wondered how dumplings would turn out using wheat flour. I did a quick search online for recipes and found a few... one that even called for raisins in the dumpling. What? Raisins? First they take over cookies and now dumplings. None of the recipes online sounded all that great. So I decided to make my mom's recipe (or what I think it was anyway) with a few substitutions to make them more diet friendly. Wheat flour for white flour, egg beaters for eggs, skim milk for 2% milk and so one.

It turned out great! The dumplings didn't hold together as well as Mom's did but they were really good with the right texture and everything. Now my kitchen smells like soup and is so cheerful with a bright bunch of flowers on the counter.

Wishing you all a cheerful day!