Long Time Big Changes

Well my friends, it has been 13 months since my last post. I do not know where the time has gone, nor do I really know why I stopped blogging. We've all had some challenges, but as always we rose to the occasions, conquered them and have moved on to the next opportunity of success. Life Has Been Good.

As many of you might know my obsession with cooking has taken a turn and has become an actual business. Sometime around September of 2010 we took "My Passionate Kisses" and turned it into "Passionate Kisses Cakes and Catering."

Who knew that a couple of cupcakes sporting some alcohol in the frosting (go figure, me and booze, who would have made that connection...lol) could turn into taking a Wilton cake decorating class could turn into becoming a Wilton Method Instructor could turn into baking and catering and sharing my yummy experiments with people who want to pay for my talents? Certainly not me! But it is so exciting. The journey is hard, but doesn't feel like work. In fact, for the first time in my life I am working very hard and getting very tired all the while feeling like I'm cheating the system by LOVING what I do. Weird isn't it?!?! I am truly blessed.

While I intend to start cooking and sharing some fun recipes again, I wanted to share one that I've been making since spring and just love! I got my original idea from a sandwich that I had for lunch for the first time about 5 years ago. It was made by the lovely people at Wegman's in Bethlehem, PA and has been my favorite sandwich ever since. It is also the perfect time of year to start making this.

The cool thing about this sandwich is that it can vary depending on the vegetables that are available at the moment. While I've never tried it with root vegetables like carrots (not that I would, to me carrots should be raw and never cooked), potatoes and parsnips etc. I'm sure if those are your favorites they could work well too.

My favorite mix of veggies for this are yellow squash, zucchini, onions, eggplant, roasted peppers and mushrooms. You can make a pan of these on Sunday afternoon and then have them for the whole week to use in all sorts of delicious things. But right now...we are heading into sandwich land. :O) So let's go!

Here's what you need:

1 loaf of your favorite crunchy crusted bread, sliced in 1/2" slices
(check out your local farmer's markets, artisan breads are rocking the country right now) or check out this book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg , Zoe Francois for some amazing do it yourself options.

Vegetables: eggplant, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, red peppers, mushrooms (your favorites)

1 or 2 packages of Zesty Italian powdered salad dressing
3 tblsps. olive oil (depends on how much veg you have), divided
1 tblsp. Mayonnaise
1 tsp. basil pesto (I always have a jar on hand)
1-2 cloves garlic, cleaned


Preheat oven to 350°.

Cut vegetables in 1/2 inch slices, mushrooms in half if small. Portobello mushroom slices would be amazing, but I usually use baby bellas. Place vegetables into a baking dish, drizzle with about 2 tblsps. of olive oil, sprinkle with seasoning and toss, making sure that all the vegetables are coated nicely.

Place uncovered into the oven and bake approximately 40 minutes or until fork tender. Please check after 20 minutes to make sure you aren't making veggie mush, its just not the same, trust me.

When vegetables are done, allow them to cool, drain and then store in a well sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. (the drippings could make a great base for soup, pop them in the freezer till you need them)

To make my favorite sandwich:
Place two slices of bread on a cookie sheet and drizzle with a tsp. of olive oil (good olive oil is best in this application, I'm using a bottle that my amazing friend Stephanie brought me from Italy, I use it sparingly because I want it to last forever...lol).

Put the bread slices into the oven and bake for about 8 minutes or until bread is lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and rub garlic cloves over bread slices.

Reheat enough vegetables to fit on your sandwich either in the oven while your bread toasts or for about 40 seconds in a heat proof dish in the microwave. You just want to warm them, not re-cook them.

While bread is baking, mix mayo and pesto in a small bowl and set aside.

Sandwich assembly:
Place one slice of bread on your favorite pretty plate (yes pretty plate, be good to yourself), slather that yummy pesto mayo on the bread, top with all those amazing veggies and close it up with the other piece of bread. Eat it whole or cut diagonally (yes diagonally, all good sandwiches are cut on the diagonal, just ask my mom if you don't believe me!) and enjoy. This could be a great light evening meal served with a dessert of grilled peaches and a glass of your favorite Riesling or hard cider.


Alternative options:

• Make it an open face sandwich and and serve as an appetizer
  
• Top it with a poached egg, the yolk of the egg oozes and makes the most delicious sauce ever...
• Boil up a pound of your favorite linguine and toss it all together, add some Parmesan cheese, serve the garlic toast on the side and voila, dinner for 4...
• For those of us that like to eat meat with our meals, you could replace the toasted bread with a nice New York Strip or even a Porterhouse if your feeling wealthy ;O).

Until the next great recipe comes along, Cin Cin,
dina

Never Give Up on the Sweet Potato

Let's face it, everyone has a vegetable, meat, grain, sweet etc., that they just don't like. You can't say why you don't like it and you've tried a million different preparations; yet you still just can't add it to the list of things you can't wait to eat.

I am no different than everyone else. There are few foods I don't like, most of them are processed foods like those Jenny-O turkey roasts, Velveeta cheese and instant mashed potatoes (unless of course they are mixed with Stove Top Stuffing, no I don't know why I like that either). But when it comes to fresh food, aka vegetables, okra, lima beans (outside of vegetable soup) and French cut string beans just send me hiding.

Then there are the ON THE FENCE foods, the ones that I can't believe I have a hard time enjoying; like olives that aren't brined in vodka or stuffed with garlic, bleu cheese (really, there is mold put in there on purpose, come on now)and Sweet Potatoes.

Don't get me wrong, mash them up, fold in a bag of mini-marshmallows and you will need to pry the empty bowl out of my fingers. I feel the same way about them when they are french fried, but pretty much any other preparation and I am just not going to knock you over to get to them. It is sad really, they are so rich and full of vitamins, they are easy to prepare, you can steam them, boil them, bake them, saute them, wrap them in pasta, bake them in a pie, mash them, grill them and french fry them; they are inexpensive to boot.

We made sweet potato ravioli a few months ago that we topped with sauteed sausage and cauliflower and it was good, but it just didn't jump off the plate as my next favorite vegetable like fennel did when I made that for the first time.

The story is the same for all the different squashes out there; acorn, spaghetti and pumpkin. I love love love zucchini, but my lack of love for all the others just mystifies me.

But here at the Wanamaker House we are not quitters and although I will continue to try and vindicate all the different squashes out there, I am starting with the sweet potato first.

Here is what we had for dinner last night. It was good, even David said it was good despite the sweet potatoes...poor orange spud, I promise not to give up on you yet.

Smothered Sweet Potatoes

4 thick slices pancetta, diced
1 lb. Apple Sausage, removed from casing and broken into bits
2 lbs. sweet potatoes (peeled and cubed)
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
5 fresh sage leaves
4-6 tblsps. butter
4-6 tblsps. olive oil
salt/pepper to taste
eggs (1-2 per person eating)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and cube sweet potatoes, place in a 13x9 inch baking dish and set aside.

In a large heavy bottomed skillet on medium-high heat combine 3 tblsps. of olive oil and 3 tblsps. of butter. Saute garlic and sage leaves until garlic is transparent and sage is a dark green and a little limp.

Pour olive oil mixture over sweet potatoes, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss till all the cubes are coated.

In the same pan that you heated the oil/butter mixture, saute the pancetta and sausage until the pancetta is just starting to crisp and the sausage is almost completely cooked, but not quite. Salt and pepper to taste. You may need to add a little more oil to the pan if it is too dry.

Pour sausage mixture over sweet potatoes, cover with foil and bake until sweet potatoes are fork tender.


In the same frying pan that you sauteed everything else, fry one or two eggs sunny side up (dippy at my house) per person. Spoon sweet potato mixture onto your plate, top with fried eggs and enjoy. The point of the egg is to provide a simple sauce to the whole dish.


I also made some pan sauteed asparagus to go along with it because I love the drippy sauce of the eggs with asparagus.

Sunny side up eggs, asparagus spears and zucchini fritters makes a fantastic breakfast, especially if they are the zucchini fritters my mom makes from the zucchini we grow in the garden. I'll post that recipe when we get into zucchini overload season.

I hope those of you that are already sweet potato lovers will enjoy this and maybe those of us who are on the fence will keep trying new ways until it hits us that we just can't live without them.

Hugs,
dina

GDYNIA Polish Market at the Allentown Farmer's Market

I think you all realize by now that it has become my goal to investigate as many foods outside of my culinary safety zone as I can. Being of Italian/German descent, with more of an emphasis on the Italian, food of all ethnicities has always been intriguing but cooking it is another story.

With this is mind, my mom and I paid a visit to the Allentown Farmer’s Market on Friday. With my daughter's camera and my debit card we walked down the aisles in search of something fun that would make a delicious meal and interesting blog.

Okay, let's tell the whole truth, we got through the double doors and stopped at Charlie K's Pizza for 2 slices of plain pizza and a medium root beer. Mom and I always talk about eating somewhere else, but we always end up on a red bar stool laughing and enjoying our pizza.

We walked down the first aisle snapping pictures and talking to vendors (I got a lot of stuff for a few days worth of blogging) until we ended up at GDYNIA Polish Market. Everything in the cases looked delicious, Mr. & Mrs. Brodowski looked up and smiled making me feel like maybe this was the adventure I needed today.

So, 15 minutes later after talking to the Brodowskis and a lovely young woman who helped with a few words of translation, we walked out of there with about two pounds of the most delicious and juicy looking Polish sausages, Kielbasa and Kapusta Sauerkraut this side of the Atlantic as well as rough directions on how to prepare it. Did you know that Polish sauerkraut has shredded carrots in it? Have I ever told you I am not a huge fan of the "carrot"? Well I gave it a shot anyway. So here you go:

Polish Sausage and Sauerkraut

2 lbs. Fresh Polish Sausage from GDYNIA Polish Market

2 lb. Kapusta Sauerkraut

1 cup water

1 onion, sliced

4 tblsps. butter

salt/pepper to taste

Place sauerkraut into a colander and squeeze out excess juices. In a heavy bottomed frying pan on medium – high heat, sauté sliced onion in butter until translucent and lightly browned. Add sauerkraut and ½ cup water, stir well. Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

Slice sausage into 3-4 inch pieces and lay on top of sauerkraut. Add remaining water. Cover and cook 15 minutes or until sausage is hot through and slightly plumped. Salt and pepper as needed.

Now let me tell you a little bit about this meal. First, my husband, despite being 100% Pennsylvania German, just hates pretty much anything having to do with cabbage, sauerkraut is not an exception. But he is now a convert. I think its because all that sour juice from the sauerkraut was squeezed out and didn't have such a bite. It also didn't have that really "hey you must be making sauerkraut" smell that takes over the house for a few days either, which in my book is a really good thing.

So the vote was unanimous, we will be going back to GDYNIA in the near future for all of our Polish sausages and to see what else we can try.

GDYNIA Polish Market at the Allentown Farmer’s Market offers a dozen different kinds of fresh Polish meats and cheeses as well a multitude of other products direct from Poland to tempt your palate into trying one of each and everything they offer.

hugs!

dina

Girls' Night a Celebration of Friendships - New and Old

What a night! There were 12 amazing women at my house Saturday night enjoying great food, wine, music and conversation. It has been such a long time since we’ve all gotten together that I was a little nervous about what the neighbors would say when we started laughing and boy did we laugh.

Dinner gave me an opportunity to experiment with new foods and introduce my friends to foods they’ve never had. Although our soup for the night and our entrée was something I’ve been making for years, the appetizer was something that came to me in the middle of the night and I found the recipe for the dessert in a cook book called “Tongue Twisters – Sexy Food from Bin 941 & 942,” I only changed it up a little bit because I didn’t have the Kahlua it called for.

Appetizer
Pancetta cups filled with polenta and topped with mini crab cakes and sautéed baby portabella mushrooms and shallots

Soup

Crespele – a delicate crepe sprinkled with freshly ground parmesan cheese, rolled up and served in a bowl topped with chicken broth

Entrée

Homemade Manicotti with Italian Meatballs

Dessert

Toffee Espresso Pots de Crème

The first one is something that came to me at about 3:00 a.m. last week, I sat straight up in bed and thought, hey, I think this would make a great appetizer for the girls. I apologized in advance if it didn’t turn out well, but it was unnecessary because it was amazingly delicious and I will be making it again and again.

Pancetta Cups Filled With Polenta and Topped with Mini Crabcakes and Sauteed Portabella Mushrooms and Shallots

16 slices of pancetta + two ½ inch pieces finely diced

1 box quick polenta prepared according to box instructions

1 cup of freshly grated Asiago cheese, plus some for garnish

3 shallots, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced very thin

salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place slices of pancetta onto the back of muffin cups and bake till slightly crispy and holds the shape of the muffin cup. It is necessary to put this upside down muffin cup pan on a cookie sheet because the pancetta releases a lot of fat when baking.

Prepare polenta as per the directions on the box, adding the Asiago cheese at the end.

Heat olive oil in a large heavy bottomed skillet on medium – high heat; add shallots, garlic and diced pancetta, sautéing until shallots are translucent. Add mushrooms and sauté until mushrooms are slightly tender and pancetta is slightly crispy. Be careful not to burn the garlic or you will need to start all over again. Remove mushroom mixture to a small bowl and set aside. Put approximately 3-4 tblsps. of olive oil into the hot skillet and sauté crab cakes till lightly browned on both sides, remove from pan and set aside. Put mushroom mixture back in pan to reheat.

Gently place pancetta cup on plate, fill with a generous dollop of polenta, top with 2-3 crab cakes and a generous spoonful of mushroom mixture. Sprinkle with Asiago and enjoy.

Mini Crab Cakes

1 lb. fresh crab meat

1 egg

½ cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

2 tblsps. Mayonaise

1 tblsp. Old Bay Seasoning

salt/pepper to taste

Olive oil

Place crab meat and all other ingredients except olive oil in a bowl large enough to get your hands into it to mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Since you will be making very tiny crab cakes, you will want to use an actual 1 tablespoon size measuring spoon to scoop out the crab mixture and shape into patties. The crab cakes should be about the size of a quarter.

Sauté crab cakes as directed above.

Toffee Espresso Pots de Crème

2 cups sugar

scant 1 ½ cups water

18 egg yolks

3 cups milk

3 cups heavy whipping cream

6 oz. Espresso Vodka

Combine sugar and water in a large heavy bottom pot. Cook on medium – high heat until caramel in color, stirring occasionally and using a wet brush to push the sugar crystals that form on the side of the pot back into the boiling mixture. This process can take up to 25 minutes, but can burn in an instant if not watched carefully.

While sugar mixture boils, bring the milk, cream and vodka to a simmer, stirring occasionally so that it doesn’t burn or develop a skin on top.

When the sugar mixture is a rich caramel color and milk mixture has come to a simmer, remove sugar mixture from heat and slowly, carefully add milk stirring constantly. This sugar is very hot and will bubble up really high; it might be safer to do it over the sink.

Place toffee into the refrigerator to cool completely. While toffee is cooling, separate eggs and whisk gently until very smooth.

Whisk egg yolks into cooled milk mixture.

Pour enough of the milk/egg mixture into clean ramekins so that it reaches the little ridge just below the top of the ramekin. Place filled ramekins into a bain de marie, cover with foil and bake approximately 50 minutes or until there is a only a soft giggly spot about the size of a dime in the center. Cool, then keep refrigerated until ready to use, can be made up to 4 days in advance if covered tightly with cling wrap. Serve with a generous dollop of home made whipped cream and a sprig of fresh mint.

This was an amazing night! I love all my friends and family and can’t wait to do this again.

hugs,

dina

Sometimes its All About the Beverage You Serve

I know a lot of the articles I've been sharing have been all about food, but I have to tell you, sometimes its all about the beverage.

Here in the Lehigh Valley we have a great community of vineyards. I have my favorites listed on the side of the blog with links to their sites, but today I am going to focus on just one of them, Franklin Hills Vineyards. It is located in Bangor, PA, but has several satellite locations that sell their wines so that we don't have to drive 45 minutes into the mountains to get our fix.

My favorite location is in The Shoppes at the Main Street Commons in Historic Downtown Bethlehem, PA. Not only do they have great wines, but the shop is chock full of great gift items for you and your favorite wino :o).

Currently, I've been drinking a lot of their Simply Red, it is a very nice table red that is not too dry or too sweet. I've been getting a bottle every Thursday because the shoppe in Bethlehem is located right across the street from the Sun Inn and during the months of May and June they play host to Tunes at Twilight, a free night of music provided by local bands. I find that it pairs well with everything we've been eating from the local restaurants on concert night. So far I've enjoyed it with eggplant pasta from Mama Nina's, hot dogs from the Sun Inn and just last week I drank it while eating an Italian BLT from the Apollo Grill. Not sure what it is on the menu for dinner this Thursday, but I can assure you, Simply Red will be in my travel wine glass.

I'm sure you realize that Simply Red is not the only wine creations they offer. There are several other great choices too, so let's move onto something we decided to do for fun with a few of their fruit wines.

During one of the concert nights last spring we bought a bottle of their Envy wine, it is a green apple that is bright and tart and the prettiest green you've ever seen and also seasonal. Never one to just be satisfied with what I have and always looking for the next burst of new flavor, a group of my girlfriends and I decided that these fruit wines might make a great base for martinis. We were right on the money! We took that bottle of Envy and a bottle of green apple vodka and mixed it 2-1, shook it with some ice and voila a very yummy martini that packs a very nice punch was born.

Did we stop there? Absolutely NOT!

Franklin Hills also offers the following wines and thanks to vodka brands like Three Olives, Van Gogh and Absolut who have introduced dozens of flavor infused vodkas to the marketplace the martini combinations are endless.

Passion (Strawberry-Kiwi)
Desire (Mango)
Bliss (Blueberry)
Fainting Goat (Black Cherry)

For even more ideas on how to use these wines, visit their website for some delicious recipes for both beverages and food.

I hope you will take a few minutes the next time you are in the area to visit our Wine Trail, while we are not the Finger Lakes in NY, we sure do have a good thing growing in the Lehigh Valley.

Cin Cin!
dina

Party Party Paaarty Party

What a month! My oldest daughter started school, she is participating in the Aesthetics program at Metro Beauty Academy and my youngest daughter graduated with her Associates in Applied Sciences of Business Management from Lehigh Carbon Community College and will be participating in the Cosmetology program at the same school starting in June. They have promised to make sure that I never look older than I do right now...okay, I threatened them that if I ever look older than I do right now with two kids in the beauty business we were going to have a problem.

But anyway, this is not a blog about the beauty of face and body. It is a blog about he beauty and deliciousness of food.

With that in mind, let me tell you about the party we are having this weekend to celebrate my youngest daughter's graduation.

The menu isn't huge, but guaranteed to be delicious. It is a family affair, as all great parties are.

My sister Diane is making the most delicious Pulled Roast Beef. She has definitely figure out the best way to do it and it couldn't be more simple. I hope she doesn't mind that I am sharing it here.

My parents are making Sausage with peppers and onions.

My sister Eileen is making her family loved Macaroni and Potato Salads.

My sister-in-law Sherri and her husband Jon are making the Turkey Meatballs that our graduate loves and I'm making regular Italian Meatballs.

There will also be pickled eggs and a whole bunch of baked goods...Italian Cookies, Chocolate Cherry Port Wine Reduction Cookies, German Butter Cake, Molasses Cake and Boozey Bites.

Boozey Bites are cupcakes that I make in all different flavors that are close replicas to your favorite happy hour cocktails, complete with icing flavored with delicious liquors. I sell them through my catering business Passionate Kisses Catering.

Now for Diane's Pulled Roast Beef. I am not going to give weights and measures because this is not that type of recipe. Don't be afraid, this is very simple and you won't mess it up.

1 beef roast, the size your family will consume
salt
pepper
garlic powder
Adobo seasoning
red wine
water

Freeze your beef roast at least for 24 hours. When ready to bake your beef roast, preheat your oven to 250 degrees F. Place your frozen beef roast into your roasting pan, we use one of the black speckled enamel roasting pans. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder and Adobo seasoning. Pour about 1/2 cup of red wine and a 1/2 cup of water into the pan around the beef roast. Cover and place into your oven. Allow to cook all day. My sister told me that she has started her's as early at 6 a.m. and eaten as late as 6 p.m. and it was still delicious. I've cooked it from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. and it was delicious. In fact, one day I put it in at 11 a.m. and we ate it at 5:00 p.m., I just upped the temperature to 275 degrees F.

We served it with small rolls so that our guests could make sandwiches.

The next two recipes are definitely in party size quantities, so let the party begin.

I make meatballs a lot, not in this amount, but often.

Meatballs (party quantity)
22.5 lbs. ground beef
1 lb. freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 tblsps. salt
2 tblsps. pepper
2 tblsps. garlic powder
1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
12 eggs

Mix all the ingredients together. You may need to do it in batches if you don't have a large enough bowl to mix it in. Form into meatballs in the size you prefer. I used a 1 1/2 oz. cookie scoop to make them all uniform in size. Then drop into your cooking sauce. Cook in the sauce about 2 hours, remove and set aside while sauce continues to cook. If you let them in for the duration of the sauce cooking time, they will disintegrate in the sauce.

Spaghetti Sauce
2 6lb. cans tomato sauce
4 20oz. cans tomato paste
10-15 cloves garlic
4-5 bay leaves
2-3 tblsps. pepper
2-3 tblsps. salt
water

Put all the ingredients in a very large pot, I really meant it, a very large pot. I had to use two pots for all those meatballs. Use the two large cans of sauce to add the water, rinsing out all the little bits of sauce in the crevices. I usually add about 1 1/2 cans or so of water. Stir well as the paste doesn't disolve quickly when it is still cold, but will burn to the bottom if you don't stir often and well as it heats up. Turn your burner to medium - high until it starts to boil slightly. Reduce heat to simmer and allow to cook for about 8 hours. Yes, 8 hours. We've been making this sauce in my family forever, my grandmother used to make sauce this way and I imagine her mother did too.


It is always good. In fact, I have a friend in Missouri that I made sauce while visiting last year and then sent home with more sauce the last time she visited. She is coming again this weekend and I imagine I'll be sending her home with more.

Buon Appetito!

Hugs,
dina

Comfort Food for the Extra Kids

I learned how to make chicken and dumplings from watching my mom for the first 19 years of my life and have been making it for more than 20 years in my house. About 10 years ago I had planned on making chicken noodle soup (sometimes when time is tight I substitute noodles for home made dumplings), but something came up and my husband stepped in and made it for me (using my instructions and my recipe). It just so happened to be the day my youngest daughter had her very bestest friend in the whole wide world Amanda over for dinner. She went crazy over this soup and has requested it every visit since, she lives 2 1/2 hours away from us now, but she always refers to as "Kaylin's Dad's Soup."

She is coming to visit this weekend to celebrate Kaylin graduating from college and despite the high humidity we are having "Kaylin's Dad's Soup," but with dumplings is for dinner tonight.

Chicken Dumplings

Broth
4 chicken legs, thighs attached with skin and bone
1 onion, peeled, kept whole
3-4 carrots, scrubbed, chopped in half, ends removed
garlic powder/salt/pepper to taste
2-3 large containers chicken broth

Dumplings
5 cups flour
5 eggs
broth or water, as needed
salt, to taste

In the biggest pot you can find, until I bought my restaurant grade pots, I used my most treasured pot that my mom gave me. It is a yellow enameled stainless steel pot that has been used and washed so much that it barely has any yellow left on it. Now I use my 10 quart heavy bottomed stainless steel pot.

Heat pot on medium high heat. Toss in your carrots, onion and chicken parts and allow the chicken to brown lightly on all sides. Fill pot about half way with water and return to heat. Add salt/pepper and garlic powder (you will probably add more throughout the cooking process) and allow pot to come to a boil.

Allow soup to boil for approximately 20 minutes, then reduce to medium heat and cook until chicken is cooked through, about another 30 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and said aside to cool. Reduce heat on soup broth, add canned chicken broth and allow to simmer while you make the dumplings.

Dumplings

Put the five cups of flour into a large bowl, make a well in the middle and put eggs in the well. Working from the center, beat eggs drawing the flour into the eggs. Continue this until the flour is mixed in enough that it would be easier to use your hands than to keep mixing with a fork.

Continue to knead dough until all is combined to make a pretty stiff dry dough. It may be necessary to add more liquid to incorporate all the flour. I usually use a little bit of broth ladled from the soup pot if I need more liquid.

Don't worry about adding too much liquid, you can always just add more flour. I only gave you measurements to give you a guide, dumplings are far from being a science. They are made more with the soul than your brain.

After the dumplings are done, you're going to want to wash all the dough off, its hard to get off, but its easier to tear off the dumplings if your hands are clean. Turn the broth up so that it boils and start dropping teaspoon sized pieces of dough into the broth, stirring occasionally so that they don't clump together. Allow to boil while dropping in the rest of the dumplings. Please do not squeeze the dumplings when making them, they need to stay loose and unformed to cook properly. If you shape them, they will become lumps of lead and never cook all the way through.

Allow dumplings to cook till done, about 20 minutes or so. If you cut one open, it will be soft and slightly mushy in appearance and not look like the dough before you dropped it in the pot.

Enjoy with some crusty bread.
hugs!
dina