sticks and stones... in my soup

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

I'd like to call BS on that for two reasons.  First and foremost, words can hurt a lot.  If you don't believe that, you were never a 7th grade girl.  Second, planks and rocks might break bones, but sticks and stones probably won't even bruise you.  Someone got it backward.

Sticks and stone will probably break your teeth, though, should you find them in your Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings (from The 30 Minute Vegan).

If you remember the first time I made this, you'll probably notice the dumplings look a little different from the way they did then.  A little...browner?  A little less cohesive?  Kinda gross-looking, actually?

The recipe calls for Spelt flour, but I was plum out - it's not one of those things I just keep around the house.  I was going to use plain ol' wheat flour, but when I grabbed the bag down from the cupboard, I saw a special little jar hiding behind it - the mesquite flour my sister had ground for us from the pods of the mesquite tree in her backyard!

I pulled it down and measured out 3/4 cup to start making the dumplings, but I noticed there were some pebbly looking spots.  In the interest of evening things out, I put the flour through my sifter.  Good thing, too!  When the flour had drifted dustily down into the bowl to be mixed with soymilk and canola oil, I looked into the sifter to see little bits of sticks and seeds and possibly stones (?) hanging out there.

Considering we don't have dental insurance right now, I'm glad I decided to sift before Mister broke a tooth.

When I set down the bowls, the dumplings smelled a little like gingerbread.  They were sweet and a little mealy, but not in a bad way.  I will probably do this in the future, but I will cut it half-and-half with "normal" flour because the mesquite flour did not hold the dumplings together all that well, and I think they were a little sweet for Mister's tastes.

I thought they provided a great, if not unexpected foil to the very salty-savory broth of the chunkier-than-I-remembered-it stew.  It was just right for this first truly chilly fall day, though.

call the wind Mariah

Mariah Carey has a magnificent vocal range - 5 octaves, to be exact, which is about twice the range some of the most talented and trained voices out there have. I used to drive my mother (probably my whole family, actually) crazy when I was a young teen and Mariah had just hit the scene. I have every album through Butterfly, when she started getting a little too "hip hop" for my tastes at that time (a world-weary 19-year-old...). Having been trained as a coloratura soprano, I was completely enthralled by her ability to hit higher notes than Sarah Brightman in Phantom of the Opera. I later learned that these notes, seemingly only contained in Mariah's range and no other's, are referred to as the "whistle register." When sung frequently enough, they are enough to stretch my mother's patience and pierce even a dog's ears, but I find them amazing even to this day.

Why all this talk of music on a [primarily] food blog? Because the wind outside my home was doing its best Mariah Carey impression today and now I can more fully appreciate my mother's distress when I would pop in Ms. Carey's tapes[!] and CDs back-to-back on multi-hour road trips.

Of course, all the howling wind and driving rain made for the perfect day to finally make Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings. A little heavy on the spelt flour, though it has a very amenable flavor which I could get used to - I'm not sure it needed to serve as both a soup thickening agent and dense dumplings dotting the stew.
I have to say, due to the wetness of the batter that was to become these substantial little dumplings, I did not actually think they would "bake" or whatever cooked them. Imagine my surprise when I took the lid off the pot and saw these fluffy little buggers! I served up two dumplings each with thick, savory stew to Mister and to me, accompanied by a simple but tasty salad of mixed greens, kalamatas, carrots, and dried cranberries.
Exhausted by the effort of not being eaten by the banshees outside the wet windows, there was a little chair dumpling as well: