I make a lot of soups and stews in autumn and winter - veggie stews for me from now on - and we like dumplings with them. I've recently discovered that homemade dumplings can be frozen uncooked, and no need to defrost, they can simply be added to the stew as they are, so today I'll be making a big batch of them. I want to make some more veggie burgers for freezing as well - carrot, parsnip, butterbean and cheese (everything tastes better with cheese!).
I've got a lot of cooking apples to process as well, unfortunately the ones from our tree (they're not Bramleys, but I can't remember the variety) don't keep very well. I'll freeze some sliced and lightly cooked, for breakfasts with porridge or overnight oats with Greek yogurt. I'll also make a couple of crumbles or an apple cake or two to freeze. The good thing about these apples is that they're quite sweet and don't need any added sugar, and I've also cut down drastically on the amount of sugar I use in baking too. I didn't do it all at once, but gradually, husband didn't even notice. Now, on the rare occasion I make cakes, I use less than half of the stated amount of sugar in the recipe. As I use mostly wholemeal flour too, or substitute some of the flour for almond or oat flour, my baking is as healthy as I can make it, and hopefully reduces the likelihood of gut problems for me.
While I've got the oven on for the apple cakes and veggie burgers (which I oven cook rather than frying them), I'll also make some cheese & chive soda bread.
Well, that's the plan anyway - how much of that I actually get done today depends on my energy and my hip, so remains to be seen! I didn't sleep at all well last night, so I expect I'll be drooping this afternoon.
We'll have fish and chips for tea - frozen and oven baked - an easy meal after all that cooking. We haven't had that for weeks, not since before I had the yeast overgrowth gut problems and went on the Candida diet, hopefully I'll be fine after. I'll have a healthy eating weekend to compensate.
I didn't know that about dumplings - thanks, that's worth knowing.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for cheese and chive soda bread - mmmmmmmm.
Wishing you a happy batch cook! xx
Neither did I.
DeleteI love the sound of cheese and chive soda bread.
DeleteMy, you have been busy! I haven't had dumplings for years - always the best part of stew to my mind! Might have to make some. It's certainly getting to be stew weather! I stew our eating apples and freeze them in ice cube trays to add 3 or 4 to porridge. Helps cool the porridge and adds sweetness without adding sugar. Hope the hip settles down and you get a good night's sleep tonight. xx
ReplyDeleteYou have been busy!! Hope you got everything done that you hoped to do. I did not know that about dumplings. Thank you so much for the tip.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I want to try to make soda bread. Earlier in the week we had a pot pie sort of dish, stew basically with a topping. We'd say biscuit topping, but not sure if that's a dumpling to you.
ReplyDelete