Vegan Chickpea and Dumplings Soup

This recipe tastes so much like chicken and dumplings soup that I would have thought it was made with chicken if I hadn't prepared it myself.

You can use canned chickpeas in a pinch, but I really do recommend that you use dried.  The chickpea cooking liquid is used as the soup base here.  It gives it a little more "chicken" taste.

INGREDIENTS: 

The Soup:

• 3 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1.5 liters chickpea cooking liquid (if you don't have that much cooking liquid left over, add water to the chickpea cooking liquid until you reach 1.5 liters)
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 2 tsp poultry seasoning or hierbas finas
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1 chile, finely chopped (optional)
• 2 tsp MSG
• salt to taste

The Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB minced fresh parsley
• 3/4 cup soy milk (you can also use regular milk here for a non-vegan version)
• 1/4 cup canola oil

PREPARATION:

1. Put all soup ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer.  While the soup is simmering, prepare the dumplings:
2. Mix dry dumpling ingredients and fresh parsley together.  Add milk and canola oil and mix with a fork.
3. Let dumpling mixture sit at least 5 minutes, until the vegetables in the soup are cooked through.
4. When the soup vegetables are cooked through, turn the heat up on the soup to bring it to a rapid boil.  Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling dough into the boiling soup.
5. Cover the soup, lower the heat so that the soup remains at a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Ladle two dumplings and soup into bowls.

Serves 4-6.