Thanks everyone for the responses.

The particular recipe I tried was the Squash Dumplings off of the Good
Eats show. I screwed up the recipe though, and came out with something
that resembled a mix between warmed over glue and squash bubble gum.
(This almost made me cry, because I love butternut squash and I ruined
one. It wasn't even edible. I gave some to one of my dogs and he spit
it out. I felt like screaming at the gummy mixtu "Give me my squash
back!")

I apologize to Alton Brown for turning what must be a really delicious
recipe into a mess.

Looks like dumplings is too delicate a dish for a beginner like me. I
think I messed up in mashing the potatoes somehow, or not adding the
right amount of flour.

Anyway, undaunted I did try a recipe for butter bean soup off of the
back of a Bush's Butter Bean can. I made one batch of that and it
turned out excellent. The only thing I changed is using canned carrots
instead of freshly chopped carrots. When the first batch turned out
well, I substituted chicken broth for water,and it turned out even
better.

I also baked some apples today with a glaze I concocted from lemon
juice, butter, and brown sugar. Yum yum.

Well anyway I'm going to keep on trying things and see what happens.

I may ask some more questions later on.

-Rubystars