Funk Dumplings.

For the past week, I've been in what I would best describe as a funk. Although my doctor might describe it as something not so associated with polyester and psychedelic colors - she might call it a bout of mild depression. These happen every so often and are characterized by lack of motivation, no desire to exercise or be social, feelings of being overwhelmed, occasional spells of crying for no apparent reason, most recently migraines, etc. All fun stuff, obviously.

Yesterday after work, I was feeling an unexpected sense of urgency about getting stuff done. I didn't pass go. I didn't stop at the gym. I headed straight home. But when I walked in the door, the house was a cluttered, dish strewn, milk-left-in-glass-since-this-morning mess. This isn't necessarily new, but after my near breakdown with Chris yesterday morning about how I'm stressed about THIS and THAT and "THE HOUSE IS A MESS" and all this other stuff, I maybe anticipated that on Chris' day off he might try to make my day a little bit better by, oh I don't know, cleaning up the house a bit! Oh, the poor guy and the expectations I create for him when he's not around.

After doing the dishes as an exercise in martyrdom, I realized I had organic strawberries that were nearing their life expectancy. So, rather than searching for a salubrious way to work through my stress like actually running, I opted to make dessert. Cooking does make me feel better, but so does eating. I was headed for disaster.

I had seen a recent recipe on smitten kitchen (I'm nothing, if not predictable) and figured I'd try it. Strawberries and dumplings...sounded simple enough.

First step was to slice the strawberries into thick slices. One step down!


Next, I added the strawberries to a large saucepan with lemon juice and brown sugar. Looks promising!

Then I made the dumplings. Oh, the dumplings. I reviewed the ingredients and realized I didn't have any whole milk. I did have whipping cream and 1% milk...why not try a mixture? So I combined the cream and the milk with butter to melt the butter in the microwave. My first attempt blew up all over the microwave (I'd show a picture but it would only serve to illustrate how infrequently I clean my microwave). I eventually got it to work. Then I discovered I had no baking powder. That can't be that important...says someone who infrequently bakes. Here are my dumplings:

The dumplings right after I added them to the strawberries.


The dumplings 18 minutes later. Do you see a difference? Neither did I.


The botched dessert. Such sad excuses for dumplings. Mental note: buy baking powder.

After all that, I decided to do the only logical thing and pour myself a glass of sauvignon blanc. I put some berries into a bowl and added cream for dessert. It was actually quite delicious. If only I had known to skip the dumpling debacle sooner...