The challenge: To cook all 115 recipes from the Thug Kitchen cookbook within a year. Only 4 days left. 6 recipes still to go.

This time it’s Chickpeas and Dumplings, page 100.

This is an awesome soup…or is it a stew? It’s a real winter warmer either way, so I should really have made it when the weather was colder. We had a thunder-storm though, so it was kinda cosy eating this indoors. However, it took me nearly two hours to make. It didn’t help that my kid kept interrupting to tell me things like his transformers wouldn’t open, he couldn’t find his smurf, and that he’d accidentally peed on his fingers. (Yes. I know. This is too much. But this is my LIFE.)

Anyway, I was a dumplings novice, so I’m sure that didn’t help. Let’s just say things were slow-paced in my kitchen, when I oh-so-frantically wanted things to move fast.

First, I made the dumplings. The fresh chives made me cry. I wasn’t expecting such a tearful attack from thin tiny herbs. Onions, yes. But chives? Come on.

After wiping my eyes, I moved on to the veggies and sautéed the shit out of them. The colours were gorgeous. Once the veggies were done the saucepan was emptied out and set back on the stove for round two.

Round two was all about making the soup. The secret mix of herbs (If you’d  bought the book already then it wouldn’t be so secret any more!) was combined with flour and broth and other things, in ways that only the Thugs themselves and an alchemist would fully understand.

Once this alchemical process was completed it was time to plop the dumplings into the soup to cook. I was cracking up with laughter in my kitchen at this point because the Thugs warned not to do this too quickly because otherwise the dumplings would get stuck together in a ‘clusterfuck of dough of dying dreams.’ Thug Kitchen are badasses with the best sense of humor. I love those motherfuckers.

When I went to plop the first few dumplings in, they disappeared in an abyss of soup and didn’t resurface. I started getting worried. Had I fucked up somewhere along the way?

After some time passed with nervous sweat and jittery waiting, they bobbed up to the surface again, like an amnesiac after a few years of being lost in the woods. So I plopped the others in to join their friends. A few at a time, don’t worry. No clusterfucks here.

Once everything was ready to go, I threw in the other bits and pieces. I realised that I didn’t have two cans of chickpeas, but one can of chickpeas and a can of some weird chickpea-favebean mix. Oh well, in it went. We were also still having a kale shortage so I had to use frozen. No fresh? No worries.

The soup was ready. I got my family together at the table, and my affairs in order.

The Thugs had promised me a food coma so I was going into this thing prepared. I had my bags packed and was ready to check out for a few days. If you’ve watched ‘Tidelands’ with Jeff Bridges, you know what I mean.

Don’t short change Daddy.

This soup did not disappoint. It was goddamn delicious and filling as hell. There are no words to describe the deliciousness. I could eat this all winter long.

If you haven’t treated yourself to a well deserved food coma yet, get yourself into your kitchen right now.

P.S. If you tell your kid that you’re putting little cakes called dumplings in their soup, they will eat anything. Even kale. You’re fucking welcome.