Chicken Chow Mein & Crispy Rice Soup with Dumplings

This is a real "cheater's lunch". The Chow Mein is a mixture of frozen, pre-cooked & packaged vegetable Chow Mein from Sam's Club and left over Chicken & Vegetables cooked in a white sauce from our favourite Chinese take-out restaurant.  The soup is made from chicken broth, dumplings and crispy rice from the Vietnamese grocery store called Com Say Cha Bong, whose listed ingredients are crispy rice, dried shrimp floss, red chili flakes and deep fried onions. The dumplings are also available frozen from the Vietnamese store and are stuffed with shrimp.  Here's how I put together this speedy lunch for two.

Ingredients:

Chow Mein
1 pkg. Ajinomoto Vegetable Chow Mein (6 or 8 pkgs./box)
Left over Chinese Chicken & Vegetables in White Sauce

Dumpling & Crispy Rice Soup
2 cups Tyson or Campbell's chicken broth
1 cup water
8 frozen, pre-cooked shrimp dumplings
1/2 pkg. Com Say Cha Bong (from Vietnamese store)

Directions:

Chow Mein

1. Remove packaging from noodles, place noodles in a covered pan over medium heat and cook until thawed.
2. Stir in chicken & vegetables along with sauce and simmer until thoroughly combined and heated.
3. Divide between 2 noodle bowls.

Dumpling & Crispy Rice Soup

1. Bring broth and water to a boil in a saucepan.
2. Add frozen shrimp dumplings and cook until dumplings float to top.
3. Divide Com Say Cha Bong between 2 soup bowls.
4. Top each bowl with 4 shrimp dumplings and pour the broth over.
5. Enjoy the sound of the snap, crackle and pop of the crispy rice when the hot broth is poured on it.

Enjoy!