Vegan Mushroom Dumpling Stew

So, a friend at work had a baby recently, and we do these things called “Meals on Wheels” for the family to help them out.  Since my friend and her family are vegetarians, I had to volunteer.  Regardless of the almost summer timing, I decided to make Mushroom Dumpling Stew.  As luck would have it, it was an overcast chilly June day anyway; so it worked out well.  Anyway, this is more of a fall soup, and it works well with many types of mushrooms.  I usually use shiitake, porchini, and chanterelle, along with standard white mushrooms (found at your local grocery).

Ingredients:
serves 8
Adapted from Suzanne Stevens’ A Taste of Hope Springs
http://www.hopespringsinstitute.com/

Dumplings~

• 2 cups unbleached flour (white, wheat, spelt, etc)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. fresh-ground black pepper
• 2 Tbs. chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, tarragon, etc)
• 3 Tbs. vegan spread (butter substitute)
• 2 servings of egg replacer, beaten (vegan egg substitute)
• 1/2 cup milk (soy or rice)

Stew Fixins~

• 8 cups vegetarian broth
• 1/2 cup Madeira wine (or Marsala, Sherry, etc)
• 1/3 oz. dried porchini mushrooms (substitute other dried mushrooms if porchini are n/a)
• 1 Tbs. vegan spread (butter substitute)
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• One onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• 3 Tbs. brandy (or port)
• 1 pound of mushrooms (any combination), sliced
• 1 large carrot, sliced
• 2 tsp. chopped fresh sage and thyme
• freshly-ground black pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Heat Madeira with 1/2 cup of water in a small pan until the liquid begins to simmer. Add the porchini, remove from heat. Cover pan and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, and herbs. Add butter in small pieces. With pastry cutter or fork, cut butter into flour mixture. Add eggs, then soy milk. Stir mixture with a spoon until it just comes together. Add a bit more milk if needed.
3. In frying pan, heat 1 Tbs. butter, add onions and garlic and cook until they are just beginning to caramelize. Add brandy and cook off. Hold mixture in bowl.
4. Heat olive oil in soup pan. Add sliced mushrooms and carrot, and sauté. Cook until the mushrooms begin to brown and carrots soften slightly.
5. Then add 8 cups of broth and soaking porchini-Madeira liquid to sautéed mushrooms. Bring soup to gentle boil, add sage and thyme, adjust seasoning if necessary. Add onion mixture in and heat.
6. Drop dumpling batter by the spoonful into the simmering stew.
7. Roll dumplings over after 4 to 5 minutes. When dumplings have cooked for at least 5 minutes on each side, serve stew.

This is a mainly music-based blog.  If you stumbled in on a recipe search, check out my other recipes, like vegan biscuits & gravy, spiced biscotti, vegan cactus chili, and vegan bananas foster at THIS LINK.

~Dan – np: Iron & Wine – Call Your Boys 7″ single