Chicken. Dumplings. 34 utensils.

Generally I can quickly glance over a recipe and determine whether or not it is going to be an Official Pain In The Ass. This calculus mostly involves how many items of kitchen equipment I will need to wash in the aftermath of the cooking itself. Do I have to use a pot and a food processor and two cutting boards and a citrus reamer and a flour sifter? Do I have to MacGyver a gravy separator with Ziploc bags and scissors? Do I also have to deal with an entire animal carcass? (Anyone who has ever accused me of being a good cook should see the face I make when removing chicken innards.) These things all add up to OPITA. What I don't know in advance is whether or not all the effort will be worth it in the end.

Dan was really run down yesterday, so I thought some restorative chicken soup was in order, and I had been wanting to try Homesick Texan's Tex-Mex Chicken and Dumplings. I must have bookmarked it when I was in one of those ambitious moods that I get once in a while. These usually occur when I'm wearing sweat pants and/or drinking beer. Generally, the more lazy and depraved my day has been, the more glorious my plans for the future become. Yes, I don't feel like getting off the couch to go to the bathroom right now, but later I should totally make a soup that involves a whole chicken and cornbread batter. This phenomenon is also responsible for my signing up for 30 days of unlimited Bikram yoga. I'm guessing that happened on a day when I didn't manage to wash my hair or put on a bra.

Aaaanyway, I know the picture of the soup itself doesn't look too exciting, but if I could have taken a picture of how badass the entire house smelled while it was cooking, you would be completely droolingly jealous.

Put your nose up to the screen and use your imagination.

It was warm and slightly spicy and chickeny and great. I actually woke up this morning thinking "Yay, chicken soup for lunch today!" (Note: yesterday morning I woke up thinking "Yay, I'm going to go cut the tags off of Anna's new clothes!" so YMMV.) Lesson: sometimes things are totally annoying to deal with, but are worth it anyway. I'm sure there are other examples in that category, but I can't think of any right now.

Know what's on TV in the background? A Fellini movie. I am absolutely serious.

Okay guys, "Lindsay Lohan: Road to Jail" is on, so I gotta go.