Improvised Chili Dumplings

Due to the problematic ethics of one of the participators, this recipe is vegan. The stuffing could be replaced with non-vegan chili or any other kind of recipe that is elastic enough to be used as stuffing.

Ingredients
For about 15 dumplings'''. That's enough for two hungry students and a not-so-hungry roommate.'''

Dough

 * - cups water
 * 2 3/4 cups
 * 1.5 tsp
 * 0.5 tsp
 * 1 tsp

Stuffing
Vegan Black Beans & Black-Eyed Peas Chili

Preparations
We used dry beans, which have to be soaked in water before they're cooked. 10 hours should be enough, they say more is preferable.

Instructions
Put the beans in a pot, add water to cover them, and then some, and cook according to the chili recipe. It takes some time for them to become edible, and you should have time to prepare the dough and study a little. To make the dough, we used the wonderous bread machine, with the supplied recipe for pizza dough. To make the dough without a bread machine, mix the ingredients in a mixer (or, lacking any kind of dough handling equipment, with the hands), until the mix is homogenious. If the result is too sticky, add more flour. If it's too dry, add more water.

If you've got a bread machine, drop the ingredients in, activate the dough plan, and stand in awe as the magic happens.

When you're done preparing the dough, and when the beans are soft, prepare the chili.

Now comes the hard part - turning the stuff we've got into dumplings. We took lumps of dough, and, using our hands, made bowls out of them. This resulted in a dough layer that was a bit too thick. Next time I'll flatten the dough before and cut out of it.

Into each such bowl, we've put about a spoonful of chili, and then we closed them, turning them into dumplings. Sometimes we had to add some more dough to close holes etc.

While preparing the dumplings, we bolied some water at a pot. We tried to add some seasoning - chicken soup powder, dried chili, black pepper and salt. I don't know if it had any effect. Next time I plan on cooking them in sauce.

Put some dumplings into the pot. Dumplings are dead, and thus, float. You'll have to flip them to let both sides cook. They swell and become edible-looking.

When both sides are glossy, the dumpling is ready and can be taken out.

Eat after cooking. Roommate said that it wasn't good after a night at the fridge.

Proved to be tasty with sweet chili sauce poured over.

Lessons learned

 * Thinner dough, maybe a different dough altogether. Spicing the dough could also work.
 * Should try: Sweet dumplings, meat dumplings, romantic-dinner-grade good-looking dumplings.
 * Bread machine is fun!