Lentil soup with chickpea dumplings

Sometimes you've just got to have dumplings.  Yes, another day and another craving for comfort food - at least today I can admit the cause of the cravings is that I am 12 weeks pregnant :)  So yes, that's why the diet has been abandoned and my creativity in the kitchen took a bit of a dip whilst I was in the throes of morning sickness!  I'm now coming out the other side, but craving the stodgy stuff that would do nothing but pile on the weight.  So I decided to see if I could come up with a lower carb, wheat free equivalent to dumplings.  I was slightly hampered by not having any veggie suet in the house but it worked fine with regular margerine.

The soup is my 'whatevers in the fridge that needs eating + lentils' recipe; today we had two bunches of salad onions, carrots, celery and a green pepper which were fried in olive oil with a little garlic.  When they're starting to brown add a cup of red lentils and cover with stock then simmer for 20 minutes or so until the veggies are tender and the lentils are mushed.

Chickpea Dumplings
4 ounces of gram flour
2 ounces of veggie margerine
1/4 cup of rice milk
1/2 tsp of baking powder

Put the gram flour, baking powder and marg into a bowl and mix with your fingers until you get a breadcrumby texture.  Add enough of the rice milk to make a soft dough.  Spoon this onto the top of your cooked stew, cover with a lid and let simmer for another 20 minutes or so until the dumplings are puffy and solid.

Enjoy!