The Dead Dad's Club

Dumplings and Bean with Bacon Soup

A NOTE:

Below is a post from awhile back. I find myself reading it once a year on Father's Day. So I am going to share it once again. And you will probably see it next year around this time as well. It's a damn good recipe.

Today’s post is going to be short. It is a holiday for many and I assume there are meats being bought, hot dishes being prepared, and Jell-O salads firming in the ice box.

This is the time of year I steer clear of the card aisles, ignore the barrage of promotional emails that filter in daily and make a concentrated effort to not ask my co-workers what they have planned for the weekend.

Today is Father’s Day and I’m a card carrying member of The Dead Dad’s Club. Though the name of our club sounds harsh it is our way of memorializing our fathers. Most of us in the club agree our fathers had a sense of humor to support our sardonic group name.

We formed innocently enough one night over beers. The Fates had found it necessary to bring together different circles of friends that once seated and stories told realized they formed a human Venn Diagram whose common space was our departed fathers.

That night, though nothing was said, we had our own Hallmark-less, cookout-less, present-less, and fatherless Father’s Day. I will not speak for everyone at that table but I imagine for a split second we all held a mental memorial for the men who were half responsible for making us.

This Father’s Day I will spend time thinking of the men who taught us to make soup, who could play a mean accordion, who proudly served our country, who filled a station wagon full of kids and travelled cross country, who stopped to make history by being photographed on a toilet in the middle of a field, who built a log home, who could light up any room with his electrical skills, who took us to our first psychic reading, who made historical societies cool, and who knew that even after he was gone could make a difference to a medical school.

So this week’s recipe is dedicated to my father, Just J. In my mind this is a family recipe. It very well could have come from Good Housekeeping decades back. But only my father could make it a real family delicacy. It’s a simple soup. From a store bought can. But made to taste homemade because of who taught me to make it.

Just J’s Bean with Bacon Soup (aka Dumps)

Feeds me for about two days. Or a family of four for one meal

INGREDIENTS

For Soup:

2 small cans Campbell's Bean with Bacon Soup

2 small cans of Milk

1 small can of Water

2 T Butter

For Dumplings:

2 cups Flour

1 t Baking Powder

2 Eggs

1/2 cup Milk

1 t Lawry's Seasoned Salt

Salt and Pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Remove condensed soup from cans and place in medium sized stock pot. Using the empty cans for measuring purposes, measure out the milk and water, add to stock pot. Bring to simmer over medium heat and add butter.

While soup simmers mix ingredients for dumplings in medium sized bowl. Using a small spoon drop 2” balls of dough into simmering soup. Being careful not to place them on top of each other. When all dough has been made into dumplings reduce heat to medium low and let simmer until dumplings have floated to the top and are cooked through when tested. Add salt and pepper to taste

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FOR MORE OF MY FAMILY FUN CHECK OUT THESE LINKS BELOW!

BUBBIE'S PUMPKIN COOKIES

STRAWBERRY DOUGHNUTS AND THE HOLES WE FILL

BIRTHDAY CAKE, BOOZE, AND DORITOS

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