Soup Kitchen

Today, kids came home to pumpkin pancakes, a favorite fall-time after school snack. I mixed 'em up and Don cooked Here's how you do it:

Pumpkin Pancakes
Make your favorite pancake recipe and add 1/2 cup pumpkin for ever 2 cups flour. Mix and make like you would normal pancakes. Serve with syrup.

Later, Caleb (8) made Chicken and Dumplings for dinner. He cut potatoes and carrots, opened cans of chicken and chicken broth. He also measured ingredients for dumplings and added dollops of dough to the boiling broth when it was time. All-in-all, I'd say he and I spent a total of 30 quality minutes preparing dinner together. Here's the recipe:

Easy Chicken Soup

1 12 oz. can chicken breast
2 medium potatoes, cubed
2 cups cubed carrots
1 can chicken broth
8 cups water
4 tsp. chicken bullion
2 tsp. garlic powder
Seasoning salt to taste

Put all ingredients into a medium stock pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Cheater Dumplings

2 1/4 cup baking mix
1 Tbsp. dry milk powder
2/3 cup water

Stir with a fork until all dry ingredients are moistened.

When soup begins a rolling boil, drop dumpling dough about the size of an extra large egg (don't you love the precision of my measurements) into the boiling soup. When all dumplings (you should have gotten about 8 of them) are in the pot, turn temp. down to medium-low and start a timer for 10 minutes. Leave to slow boil, uncovered for 10 minutes. Then, cover the pot, start the timer for 10 more minutes and continue to boil. After 10 minutes remove from heat and serve.