Recipe 81 - Fake out Cracker Barrel Chicken and Dumplins!

My sweet baby girl.

Oh it was a hard weekend.

This will be the second fur-baby I've lost since August.  I would like a break, please?

My little Bella went to cross Rainbow Bridge early Monday morning.  I held her in the safety of my arms as she passed.  The vets believe she was suffering from Cancer.  They did what they could, outside of exploaratory surgery.. but this went through her little body so quickly.  I did what I could as a mom.  I stepped away from the vegan plate for her via my cookware (even sucked up a piece of tuna on occasion trying to siphon it for her - eep)!
I cooked her foods, gave her raw meat, eggs, cheese.  Eventually we had to start force feeding, so we moved to baby-food and tuna blended in a concoction of essiac tea (known to kill cancer pretty quickly).  Nothing worked.  I would do anything for my children, and the same went for Bella.  I will love and miss my sweet girl so much.

There is no love like that of my fur-kids.  <3

So, Saturday was a hard day for me.  Bella was feeling worse (and looking worse) and I had so much to catch up with.  I was so ready to sit down with my 'chicken and dumplins' and call it a day.  I left the house for a mere 20 mins to pick up a thing or two at the grocery and then it was back to tending to my patient and cooking.  So, I got all of my ingredients together and went to town.

That ain't chicken, folks!

I started out with the copycat recipe of Cracker Barrel chicken and dumplings.. but didn't cook my 'chicken' quite as long as I would have if I were boiling the meat of a real chicken off the bone.  I used what they call 'Beyond Meat' 'chicken'.  This stuff is amazing.  If you look closely, it even has the strings like chicken meat would have.   I recommend this.  As vegans, we crave the flavors of the things we knew, and this 'meat' does just that, only you know it's compassionate.  I love that!



While that was going, I cut potatoes for my mashed potatoes (at the CB I always got these on top of mashed potatoes!)  Then it was time to prepare the dumplins.

Such a constructive recipe for dumplins.  I had to even make buttermilk (of course). The recipe actually suggested I just pinch the dumplings off of the dough - but I wanted mine to look more like the Cracker Barrel ones, so I hunted down a cookie cutter in the shape of a rectangle, and had at it...

Once those were done I prepped my corn and green beans.   (I didn't have any fresh of either, so I reheated some frozen ones.. they're so bright!)  Then I took the chicken out of the boiling 'no chicken broth' and plopped the dumplins in to cook for a little bit and cooked the veggies at the same time - gave Bella some real chicken babyfood then it was time to put the 'chick'n' back in with the dumplins.

At this point my tummy was going OFF on me. 

I prepped my plate, mashed my tatoes and put those babies on top of my potatoes..
and then..
OMG.





I WILL make these again for CB lovers... because
OMG
They tasted like the REAL THING!

I am not lying to you... just LOOK at that yumminess!

I'm almost done with them.. as I lived off of them the rest of Sunday.
My appetite is slowly coming back so I'm sure they'll be gone soon.. (in another hour maybe).

Coming up later this week - I'm going to dedicate the next veganization to my girl.
So, it's going to be a pretty one as Bella means "beautiful".

We're also still on angry bird month.. we'll find a way to make a few birds PRETTY HAPPY with this next veganization too.

Til then.
Love eachother and yourself.
xo


Music enjoyed while blogging:
Birds Singing

Current Craving:
Darn those dumplins

Current Motivation:
Getting back on track without having a baby that needs me.