Well, you can't win them all...

So, last night's dinner... um...

It started innocently enough.  I decided to make the Homestyle Bakes Dumplings and Chicken.  That was my first mistake.  Of course, I had to doctor it up a little.  And, for that matter, if you ever buy this product, which you should NEVER buy, then do NOT prepare it according to the box.  You HAVE GOT to doctor it.  This product is just awful, and any doctoring only makes it barely palatable.

The product itself is a dry biscuit mix that you prepare with water and then drop it by spoonfuls in the bottom of the baking pan.  That part is pretty good.  The bad part is the chicken stew part in the can.  You're supposed to pour that over the dumplings and then cook it.  From the second I opened the can, I knew I had made an awful mistake.

Way back in ancient times when I was a child, I liked chicken soup.  Chicken and stars, alphabet soup, chicken and noodle -- I loved them all.  Then in college, something happened.  I worked a summer in a camp for Jewish girls.  I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of this summer, except for Fridays.  The camp celebrated Shabbat every Friday and the celebration itself was just amazing.  The hard part was the diet.  We had no meat during the day on Fridays--just PB&Js for lunch.  Dinner was just delicious:  Matzo ball soup, Challah bread and fried chicken.

My problem came because of two events.  First, I was a water safety instructor and by the time I got to dinner, I was starved.  Second, I was a counselor for the 15-year-old cabin, so we were one of the last tables to be served.  So, we'd come into dinner, just starving, fill up on rich chicken-based matzo ball soup and even richer Challah bread.  I literally made myself sick eating that soup.  And, unlike all the dozens of foods that made me sick when I was pregnant, to this day I can never eat canned chicken soup again.

The second I opened those cans last night, that smell took me back twenty-five years ago to those Friday nights.

I lost all zeal to make it delicious, but I tried anyway.  I roasted about six frozen chicken tenders to add to the meat.  I used milk instead of water to make the dumplings.  I added in a small package of mixed vegetables.  I sprinkled it all with rosemary and thyme.  All of these things helped immensely.

The family ate it and said that they liked it. (Meh.)  It served 5 of us for dinner, and a couple of the guys ate seconds and thirds.  They cleaned it all up--there were no leftovers.

For the five of us, it cost about $2 for the extra chicken, $6 for the Homestyle Bakes, $1 for the mixed vegetables, so for the five of us, it was about $9 total.

There you have it.  My sad, sad story of how I broke up with chicken soup, so many years ago.  Sniff.

What food have you broken up with?

(Someday I'll tell you why I'll never again drink rum, but you can probably guess how that story ends.)